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Soccer leagues in Israel, UAE reach cooperation agreement

Israeli Professional Football League and UAE Pro League sign MOU to include matches between the teams of each country.

Israeli soccer player Dia Saba. Credit: Adir Benyamini via Wikimedia Commons.
Israeli soccer player Dia Saba. Credit: Adir Benyamini via Wikimedia Commons.

The soccer leagues of Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced that they reached an agreement on Tuesday about future play.

The heads of the Israeli Professional Football League and UAE Pro League signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that would include matches between the teams of each country, reported the AP.

Israeli league chairman Erez Halfon said “it seems that there’s more that unites us than divides us,” mentioning possible areas of cooperation that include “promotion, sports technologies and social commercial collaborations.”

This move comes after the signing of the Abraham Accords on Sept. 15 between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.

Following the normalization agreement, the Al-Nasr SC soccer team based in Dubai signed Israeli national team midfielder Dia Saba, who became the first Israeli to play on a team in an Arab Gulf state.

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