Amin Abbas

DUBAI: The Dubai Japanese Football Association, a popular club for the Japanese community in the UAE organized the Gulf Cup Tournament 2022 on Feb. 18 in Dubai.

This year’s edition of the tournament consisted of 4 teams from GCC countries: Dubai Blue West, Dubai Blue East, Abu Dhabi Gazels and Sakura Red Falcons, from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The matches between the four teams were very exciting as each team was trying its best to win the championship. In the end of the tournament, Dubai Blue East team won the championship by getting 2 wins, 1 draw out of three matches at the tournament.

Speaking exclusively to Arab News Japan, Tomohito Hirabayashi, General Manager of Dubai Blue Football team, shared his feedback this year’s edition of the tournament, saying: “For this year’s edition of the Gulf Cup Tournament, we got 4 teams from GCC countries. We usually get 8 teams or more every year, but because of the situation with the COVID -19 pandemic, we limited the participation this year to 4 teams only and each team played 3 matches in this tournament.”

“At the end of the tournament, everyone was happy as they tried their best specially Dubai Blue East team who won the championship after exciting matches with other teams at the tournament,” he added.

“We are looking forward to have more teams next year from at least 10 countries such as: Turkey, India & other countries around the MENA region,” he said.

Japanese restaurant Wokyo Noodle Bar was one of the main sponsors for this year’s edition of Gulf Cup tournament. The restaurant’s operations manager Zak Alaalam told Arab News Japan that this year’s tournament was very “organized and everyone had a high sport spirit.”

“Our goal of sponsoring the tournament was to promote the good heathy lifestyle with healthy food and practicing sports, Wokyo Noodle Bar features a traditional food as soccer is traditional sport, so the coordination for the tournament was based on that,” Alaalam said.

“We were really honored and grateful to be part of the Gulf Cub and we want to give our gratitude to the organizers of the tournament for their amazing support,” he added.