First ever UAE Pro League awards ceremony in May

Awards for nine categories have been instituted and will be given away at Adnec on May 26.

Asamoah Gyan, right, and his club Al Ain are both table-toppers in the Pro League this season. Satish Kumar / The National

The Pro League Committee (PLC) is preparing to host its first awards ceremony at the end of the month.

The Etisalat Pro League Awards is scheduled to be held on Sunday, May 26 at Adnec to celebrate and honour the successes of players, coaches and clubs during the course of the ongoing season.

Nine categories have been instituted six of which will be given to players, two to managers / coaches and one to a club.

The categories of Emirati Player of the Year, International Player of the Year, Coach of the Year, Young Player of the Year and Goalkeeper of the Year will involve industry voting to determine the winners, with media institutions nominating a shortlist of five candidates for every category.

Once the shortlist has been determined, the team manager, coach and captain from each of the 14 top-flight clubs will cast their votes from the shortlisted candidates and the Awards Technical Committee will tally the final votes.

The winners of the Top-Scorer of the Year and Professional Club of the Year categories will be decided based on the statistics of the Pro League's top-scorers table and AFC Club Licensing and Ranking criteria respectively, as confirmed by the PLC Technical Committee.

There will also be an award for Fantasy Football Manager of the Year, whereby the manager of the highest-ranked team in the recently-launched online Fantasy Football platform will be honoured for their achievement, and finally the public will have the opportunity to crown the winner of the Fans' Player of the Year award by voting online using the dedicated Facebook application on the official Pro League page.

Following are the categories

- Emirati Player of the Year

- International Player of the Year

- Coach of the Year

- Young Player of the Year

- Goalkeeper of the Year

- Top-scorer of the Year

- Professional Club of the Year

- Fantasy Football Manager of the Year

- Fans' Player of the Year

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