Twelve months on and the waters remain calm. Very soon after my last day of employment, while back in Scotland, I signed a contract with Dubai Media Inc to write a book about the history of football in the United Arab Emirates. It proved a project as interesting as it was irksome. Not only did it mean shuttling between Rio and Dubai for a few months, I also found that for every exclusive interview I managed to secure, I came up against incompetence blocking my access to two or three other crucial elements of information.
An example: Al Ain won the Asian Champions League as recently as 2003 yet neither the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) nor the club itself could provide team line-ups for the two-legged final. It was the AFC’s first tournament after an overhaul of the competition, yet the continent’s governing body kept no record of the players involved. It remains the greatest achievement in Al Ain’s history yet the club itself does not have a team-sheet, despite the tie being played only 13 years earlier. One club official struggled to understand my disbelief/frustration: “Why don’t you just check Wikipedia?” he suggested, helpfully.
Finally, the book is now all but finished (complete with team-sheets) and once a few graphics are done it will be proof-read in its entirety and sent to the publishers. With that in mind, I have found myself with time on my hands; enough time to finally start doing some of the things I planned when I decided to move to Rio de Janeiro. Things such as sip a caipirinha on Copacabana Beach, climb some of the city’s spectacular mountains, and enrol in an intensive language school.
Oh and blog a little more.
ISWAS