00:00What do you get when you cross football, volleyball, tennis and squash?
00:20Well, the answer to that is you get the fastest growing fusion sport that is sweeping the
00:26nation and that is pad ball.
00:29I'm at the opening ceremony of the Emirates Pad Pro Sport Academy right here in Al-Quds,
00:34Dubai.
00:35This place is the largest pad ball facility in the whole world.
00:45The academy is located in Al-Quds 4 Dubai and is spread over a 10,000 square foot area
00:50with seven pad ball courts.
00:53Pad ball was created in 2008 in Argentina and in 2013 the country hosted the first pad
00:59ball world cup.
01:01So what are the rules?
01:02Well, four players compete in a doubles format, serves must be underhand, the scoring method
01:07is the same as in tennis, walls are part of the game and you use a slightly smaller than
01:13normal football.
01:14Ghazi Al-Madani, head of private establishment and licensing department of the Dubai sports
01:19council was the guest of honor for the ribbon cutting ceremony.
01:30We're extremely thrilled to be having the world's largest pad ball facility in the world.
01:35It's the first of its kind in the UAE.
01:37We've launched across GCC as the first nation and we're slowly going to expand across the
01:43different GCC countries.
01:44Since it's a fusion of football, of course in this part of the region football is one
01:48of the holiest sports and I think it's a tradition that we should follow and it's a fusion based
01:54on football.
01:55Pad ball, we'd like to say, is played across all ages.
01:57So it starts from the age of about 6 to 8 and it can go on till about, you know, till
02:02you're older, 50 plus.
02:04Because unlike football, the running is not as much and it's more skill orientated.
02:09So I think our aim as Emirates Pad Pro, Kabir, Samir and myself, we want to have an academy
02:14where we're training people, coaching kids, adults, female and male.
02:19Of course, one of our aims is to hold the World Cup Pad Ball 2024 in the UAE and build
02:26a UAE national team, female and male.
02:28I think pad ball is for women and men and I have been playing actually for an hour only
02:35but I really enjoyed it because you can have fun with your friends and also do teamwork
02:41at the same time.
02:42I've been playing pad ball for four months and it is a very good sport that supports
02:46your teamwork and helps you get way better technically and if you ever want to have fun
02:50with some friends, come here.
02:52Okay, so that's pad ball, the latest fusion sport that mixes football, volleyball, tennis
02:57and squash.
02:58If you like what you see, why don't you come down here and start playing yourself.
03:01I'm Imran Malik reporting for Golf News.
03:03Alright guys, who wants to play?
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