A Liverpool Fan's Experience in Abu Dhabi

I came to work in Abu Dhabi earlier in the year. I knew all about Shaikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi owning Man City, so I was expecting an entire city fanatical on supporting Man City.

The vast majority of inhabitants of Abu Dhabi are workers from the Indian Sub Continent, Phillipines, Egypt, Sudan, Syria and Europe. The rents in Abu Dhabi City are really high - a lot are higher than London. People from the Asian countries are struggling to make an existence in Abu Dhabi - they work long hours and send earnings to their families back home - sports and leisure are not high on their agenda.

The indigenous locals who are known as Emiratis are a minority and they're wealthy. These form the main Man City support base. Emiratis buy genuine replica kits - they're more expensive out here too. I've seen Emirati youths wearing Man City, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea and Man U kits.

There are loads of shops which sell "fake" kits. However, the kits do not have the brand logos like Nike, Adidas, Puma etc. They have the club badge and sponsor logos on them. The rich Emiratis buy the genuine article whereas the rest buy fakes - with exceptions of course.

When I first arrived I was disappointed at the lack of Liverpool replica shirts being worn. On reflection it's a good thing as the money is not going to the counterfeiters. Had we won the EPL there would have been more Liverpool shirts being worn - genuine and fake.

There are umpteen channels all devoted to showing football matches from leagues in the Middle East. They're highlights and live matches. In one of my accommodations I was lucky to get Bein Sports Channel which is from Qatar. They were showing the key EPL matches live. I got to see the climax of last season. Most matches have commentary in Arabic. However, they have English speaking pundits but they're dubbed over in Arabic. However pundits like Kevin Keegan or Trevor Francis their voices were left in English.

Football is not really the sport of those from the Sub Continent - cricket is. However one of the Indian Channels did broadcast World Cup 2014 matches in English and guess who were among the pundits? - Robbie Fowler and Peter Crouch!

There's no pub culture as such in this Islamic country (there are some Pubs for expats - but not as heaving as the sports bars in the West). So Emiratis and other football fans congregate in Coffee/Shisha shops to watch football on plasma screens.

In a conversation with a couple of the Emiratis, they were fans of Man City, maybe by default. They had huge respect for Steve Gerrard in that they saw him as world class player who had the ability to change a game in Liverpool's favour. This was on the eve of the match when we beat them 3-2. I was really happy. But they got their sweet revenge at the end of the season - no doubt.

When Man City won the EPL the feeling among the Emiratis was one of joy. But I think they expected the team that they invested so much in to deliver the goods. The joy was short-term - then business as usual.

There are a lot of branches of Standard Chartered Bank out here. Whenever I passed one of them I looked in the window and saw zero reference to Liverpool - no posters of Suarez etc. This was really surprising for me. I think their business is focussed on the Asian markets where football is not dominant. Had we won the EPL I was going to walk in one of the branches and give them a poster "Congratulations to Liverpool FC - Winners of the English Premier League 2014. Standard Chartered Proud Sponsors of Liverpool FC" with the Liverpool team photo featured on the poster to stick in their window. But history turned out differently.