Sports In The Middle East

What is the number sport in the Middle East? Unlike America but in line with the rest of the world, the most popular sport is football. Not American football but soccer and it is extremely popular in the United Arab Emirates where the premier football league, UAE Football Union, is located. The league hosted the first Arab female football championship in 2006 and participating nations including Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. The United Arab Emirates currently has the best national football team and they rank 110th in the world according to the FIFA world rankings. The sports capital of the Middle East is arguable Dubai because they have some of the best venues and have hosted many important events that attract many western athletes. The Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships is often dominated by Roger Federer for the men's side and Justine Henin won four titles in past decade. Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick, Rafael Nadal and Caroline Wozniack have all played in the Dubai tournament and it is by far the largest tennis event in the Middle East.

The European PGA tour concludes with the Dessert Classic in Dubai and the tour as a whole is often referred to as the "Race to Dubai". The Dessert Classic is one of the more prestigious tournaments with one of the larger bonus pools of all tournaments at $7.5 million and is held at the Emirates Golf Club. A few American PGA golfers have attended the Dessert Classic and they include Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Fred Couples.

Dubai itself is host to many other sporting activities including camel racing, the always entertaining UIM Class One Powerboat World Championships, Sevens Rugby Tournament, cricket leagues, Formula 1 races and the Dubai World Cup horse race which is the most expensive horse race on the planet. Dubai may be the sports capital but other nations like Tunisia or Morocco have similar yet less well known events for their football, cricket championships. The dominant idea that people in the Middle East do not play sports is completely false and upon closer inspection sports may actually be more popular in the Middle East but are not given the same type of media coverage that American sports receive.