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Dubai’s most progressive youth organisation has been awarded the prestigious accolade of the Sports Pioneer Award 2021, recognising its dedication to becoming the Middle East’s First Eco-Friendly Club.
Alliance Football Club, the Middle East’s most revolutionary youth organisation has won the MEA Markets’ Sports Pioneer Award 2021 for Middle East’s First Eco-Friendly Club.
The well-respected award symbolises the continuous hard work and efforts of the club’s Founder and Director, Mehran Rowshan, and his incredible team, for whom the topic of sustainability has been at the forefront since Alliance was established in 2015.
Transforming the notion of becoming an “earth-friendly footballer”, Alliance FC steps up to their promise of becoming the region’s first eco-friendly football club by instilling ethical approaches in the way that they operate. Mehran and his team ensure that every young athlete to step through their doors is given the chance to build life skills alongside playing the game, with conscious and sustainable practices being shared with players through small but significant initiatives.
“Teaching Alliance members sustainable choices that aid in their development as football players is one of our core responsibilities as coaches,” Mehran says. “They are the next generation of society’s movers and shakers, and at Alliance we believe in nurturing young minds as well as sporting talent.”
This begins when players join Alliance FC; they receive a club-branded stainless-steel, refillable water bottle – why? Because single-use plastic bottles are banned inside the club. “Most parents welcomed the idea and supported us, which made a significant impact on our long-term target,” Mehran says. “Currently, we have kids as young as three-years-old who train with their eco-friendly bottles. We also stopped using paper inside the club and turn off the unnecessary floodlights during training,” he adds.
With the motto of #LessPlasticMoreLife working together as a team has allowed Alliance FC to reach incredible milestones in order to do their part to save the environment, we live in. Mehran shares: “We’ve achieved our initial target of eliminating plastic trash inside the club. Alliance players save approximately 80,000 plastic bottles per season simply by using their Alliance stainless steel bottles. In addition, the “new normal” at Alliance FC is in keeping with their ethical roots, as the club doesn’t allow for single use masks too.
It is no surprise that Mehran is the man behind this strong mission to elevate, and innovate, the landscape of youth sports in Dubai and the Middle East. As a world-leader in the youth mentoring and sports coaching industry, when Mehran sees or experiences something important that needs to be addressed, he does all that’s within his power to educate the youth on the subject in focus, and inspire more informed actions.
Almost a decade ago, he noticed how much plastic waste was being created from football sessions while coaching at another well-known club. “I realised that we could not achieve anything without educating our players about the environmental impacts of our behaviour,” he says.
Since founding Alliance FC, educating on sustainability has been a key focus, and players are encouraged to embrace a more environmentally-conscious outlook when making life decisions both at training and beyond the pitch too. “We make sure that our students are conscious of the impact of their choices on the environment. A simple change of behaviour can make all the difference in the child’s long-term character development.
“When we play outside the club, players instantly notice the number of plastic bottles on the pitch. This means our boys and girls are more self-aware and proactively making better sustainable decisions,” he adds.
Mehran and his team also encourage players to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and to take on the responsibility of other environmental basics that can have a great impact on the planet, in the long run. The goal is to inspire young athletes to understandthat every small action counts towards respecting mother nature, and making a bigger difference for the future of the planet. “While we work every day with our kids to help them become better players, we also want to make sure they become more educated people too,” Mehran explains. “You’d be surprised to see how deep you can connect with a child through football; it’s a powerful tool. And so, we make sure our players are aware of the impact of their decisions on the environment.”
Alliance also provides their players with eco-friendly Canvas Bags. This is a multipurpose bag that can be used for shopping, sports, the beach, and quite literally anything else you can think of. Each Alliance member’s family receives a complimentary Alliance Canvas Bag to start using straight away.
As a multi F.A.-qualified youth mentor and sports coach, Mehran is motivated by the prospect of nurturing young minds alongside building their football repertoire. His forward-thinking approach blends classic training with modern, out-of-the-box methods, leading to phenomenal, positive impacts on Alliance’s players and the wider community.
With that said, never has an award been more fitting and deserving than this one. Here is a coach that can harness his ability to influence and teach young people that their every decision can lead to making a collectively big difference. As Mehran and his team strive to progress and guide the next generation of footballers, thinkers, innovators and minds, it’s safe to say that this prominent award is just the first step in a long journey of triumphs that Alliance FC is set to achieve in the future.
Visit www.AllianceFootballClub.com to know more.
