The World Sports Summit came to a suitably extravagant conclusion in Dubai on Tuesday with no fewer than seven Fifa World Cup winners appearing on stage together.
The group – Italy's Alessandro Del Piero and Fabio Cannavaro, Brazilian greats Ronaldo and Cafu, former France captain Didier Deschamps, and Spain legends Carles Puyol and Andres Iniesta – boasted 801 international caps, 10 World Cups, 10 Uefa Champions League triumphs and 35 domestic league titles between them.
Other numbers were likely being crunched at the Dubai Sports Council on Wednesday, such as the event’s colossal social media reach, or the dollar value of deals struck at Madinat Jumeirah as decision-makers, agents and managers mingled among the athletes.
Something that is harder to put a precise number on, though, is the profound impact sport has had, and continues to have, on life in Dubai and the UAE as a whole. From the neighbourhood yoga studios to the major international competitions, sport is intrinsic here.
A few months ago, the council quietly released its plan to double the number of sporting events it hosts by 2033 and transform Dubai into “the world’s best sporting city”. The summit was some way to start.
If diversity, multiculturalism and the sharing of values and ideas is the UAE’s strength, then this was its sporting manifestation, a cross-pollination of athletes, codes and the industries that support them.
Premier League and NFL executives discussed their differences and many similarities, while NBA stars scrambled to catch a word and take a picture with Manny Pacquiao, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Oleksandr Usyk.
The presence of those elite fighters was illuminating, with the sporting menu on offer at the summit a clear reflection of the UAE's current dietary preferences. Football, of course, remains king, and cricket will always thrive in the country because of the vast expatriate communities from the Indian subcontinent, but the enormous popularity of combat sports simply cannot be ignored.
It’s no secret that the UAE has thrown huge sums of money at sport – from padel to horse racing and everything in between – but little has taken root quite like MMA. When the UFC comes to town you see people wearing shirts bearing its logo on the streets and in the supermarkets, emphasising the kind of organic fandom that has been so challenging to cultivate.
It can seem as though there are as many MMA gyms in Dubai as there are branches of Starbucks, with the city now the global centre of the sport. UAE leaders have long championed the virtues of jiu-jitsu and other combat disciplines, while the UFC has undoubtedly left a footprint in the 15 years it has held events in Abu Dhabi.
But it is surely the emergence of Islamic MMA stars and their preference to base themselves in the UAE that has supercharged the growth. Khabib stops traffic in Dubai, while his more camera-shy contemporary Khamzat Chimaev – the UFC middleweight champion was not on the bill at the summit but was mobbed in the lobby on Monday – is perhaps the ultimate symbol of the UAE’s warm embrace of MMA.
The Chechnya-born Chimaev was granted an Emirati passport last year and proudly flies the UAE flag inside the octagon after his seemingly inevitable victories.
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UFC great Khabib Nurmagomedov with Rio Ferdinand during the World Sports Summit at Madinat Jumeirah. All photos: Antonie Robertson / The National -
Italian great Roberto Baggio with Alessandro Del Piero -
Former NFL Player Reggie Bush at the World Sports Summit -
Khabib Nurmagomedov spoke at length about why he took up coaching -
Rio Ferdinand and Khabib Nurmagomedov during the World Sports Summit -
From left: Amanda Staveley, former Newcastle United owner, Mary Owen, former Buffalo Bills owner and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, former Newcastle United owner, during a panel at the World Sports Summit, moderated by The National's Mina Rzouki
Boxing is now following suit. The fighters might go to Riyadh to compete, but they choose the Emirates to live and train, as shown by Usyk’s recollections of his brutal camp in Dubai ahead of his 2022 rematch with Anthony Joshua.
Returning to the UAE's first love, football, Fifa president Gianni Infantino opened the show on Monday by announcing the organisation's official awards would be rebranded and moved to Dubai in 2026. That’s one event the sports council can count towards its total.
As for the goal to turn Dubai into “the world’s best sporting city” – this was a serious statement of intent.
