DUBAI: Following an impressive debut in the UAE Women’s Football League last season, Banaat FC have their sights firmly fixed on the trophy in their sophomore campaign, which they kicked off with a bang last Sunday with a 5-0 win over PSA.

The brainchild of Budreya Faisal, an Emirati entrepreneur with extensive sports marketing experience, Banaat FC was founded in 2023.

Its mission is “to empower young girls in the UAE through football, providing top-tier training in a culturally inclusive environment, while championing Arab representation in the sport.”

Faisal’s vision is to provide Arab women with a football club that reflects their identity and values, starting with the club’s name, Banaat, which means ‘girls’ in Arabic.

In their first year, Banaat FC won 10 of 11 games to qualify for the top division league, which they ultimately finished in third place.

They enter this 2024-2025 campaign having signed a landmark three-year deal with Nike. This makes Banaat the first independent women’s football club in the Middle East and North Africa region to partner with the athletic footwear and apparel powerhouse.

The Banaat FC jersey design features a bougainvillea, known in Arabic as ‘Jahannamiya,’ which is the unofficial UAE flower, known to thrive in harsh conditions.

The team’s kit is available exclusively at the Nike store in Dubai Mall. “It’s the best honor to have them as our main sponsor,” Faisal told Arab News in an interview after the kit launch recently.

“I think us being in the Nike store, having our jerseys sold there, it’s not something that’s ever happened here for a women’s team. So I feel like this partnership is helping us change the game at a much faster speed.”

The partnership with Nike is about more than just a football kit. The collaboration encompasses a variety of initiatives including community events and workshops featuring international Nike athletes.

The aim is to improve the perception of women’s football in the UAE, as well as support the club’s ambition to become Dubai’s first professional women’s club.

“It’s crazy. The kit launch event was so emotional and overwhelming. I felt so proud,” said Banaat FC center-back Farah Al-Zaben.

“If you think about it, we’re only 1 year old and to be 1 year old and have a partnership with Nike, it’s not an easy thing to get. And it’s all testament to Budreya’s hard work and her belief in the vision of the club and what we’re trying to do.

“Of course we’re here to win the league, to compete, it’s the No. 1 goal for us this season, but it’s also us existing to show the other teams how it’s done properly, how it should be done.

“Because from what I’ve seen so far in women’s football, there’s not a lot of attention to details and how things are done. It’s just things getting done for the sake of it and not to actually help grow the game and expand it in the region.

“So it’s amazing. We’re talking about Nike, it’s not like any other partnership. We’re so lucky and this is just the beginning. I can’t wait to see what else is coming.”

Indeed there is a lot more in the pipeline, according to Faisal, who says community outreach events will be a key part of their work this season.

More sponsors will be onboarded as well, with the main focus being on winning the league in order to make it to the Asian Women’s Champions League qualifiers and get a chance to compete at the continental level.

UAE league champions Abu Dhabi Country Club have made history at the current inaugural Asian Women’s Champions League, by becoming the first Arab team to qualify, and then advancing to next March’s quarterfinals.

“This is the most important thing for us right now. I just sent them a message, to one of their coaches, saying, ‘I cannot wait for you to bring that trophy home.’ They can go all the way,” said Faisal.

“They’ve been here for 12 years, as the only professional club here, paying their players, having incredible staff there, they’re Abu Dhabi’s club. Them just making it that far gives us all a much bigger chance next year to improve things locally.

“Because you can’t have a team do that well and then you come back here and look at the league and find no league. It’s because of that achievement that we’re going to get a lot closer to professional football here and a lot sooner than everyone expected.”

While Banaat’s first season was filled with unprecedented milestones, it also served as a reality check for how much work needs to be done to elevate women’s football in the UAE and to professionalize the landscape.

Last season’s league featured 10 teams split across two divisions, with some eventually dropping out from the bottom one. This season there are only nine teams, and most of them are from academies, featuring younger players.

“This is tough, it’s much tougher than I thought it would be,” said Faisal.

“I’ve always worked in professional football, but with men’s football. I understand that the women’s league here is still not a professional league, as in players are still not paid and we don’t have enough clubs.

“But because I come from a very professional environment, I thought it would be easy to professionalize things. But what I’ve learned is that I have to change my expectations and almost erase a lot of what I’ve learned before because this is a completely different game and industry.

It’s not just women compared to men. And there’s so much more room for growth here, so much we can impact and change, which are all good things, it’s just not as smooth as I thought it would be. And it’s also very expensive.”

Faisal believes people have underestimated the appetite for women’s football in the country. She is confident things will change with more light being shed on the game, especially through the establishment of the Asian Women’s Champions League.

CAF, the governing body for football in Africa, recently enforced a rule stipulating that all men’s clubs must establish women’s teams to obtain professional club licenses and take part in regional and continental competitions.

The AFC, Asian football’s governing body, is meant to follow suit but such licensing criteria are yet to be enforced. Once they are though, things can develop rather quickly for women’s football in the UAE.

“Imagine that many more opportunities for girls to play and to get paid to play,” said Faisal.

“That’s going to be a new experience for them all and will show them what it’s like to actually be professional footballers. Because our players are as committed as any professional.

“They commute from Abu Dhabi, Khor Fakkan, Al-Ain, everywhere, four times a week, to come to training for an hour and a half. So they spend a good four to five hours in the car, just to come and train, and they don’t get paid.

“So they’re doing more than what men are doing, because men get paid to live in the same city. They’re putting in more effort for no financial return. But they know that, at least the girls on my team, that we’re here to change that for the better and push other clubs.

“And already we’re talking to other pro clubs and helping and advising them on their women’s programs. Because they’re seeing the appeal. So it’s going to change a lot of things for women here.”

Among the difficulties faced by Banaat in year one was multiple coaching changes. They have found stability with their current coach, Shamel Soqar, who took the helm midway through last season and helped steady the ship.

“We’re all grateful for him, because we believe he kept the team going,” said Al-Zaben, who has played for Jordan on different age-group national squads and competed at the U17 Women’s World Cup in 2016.

“Three different coaches in one season; we started off winning each and every single game, but we didn’t end up on the best note. But if anything this is just going to drive us to do better this season, fight for every single game as if it’s the final game,” said the 25-year-old.

“Because this season is different, everyone is seeing what we’re doing, it’s not just the social media part of things, but also the hard work we’re putting in as players, as coaches, as management, there’s a lot behind the scenes, especially for this season, because the mentality is different.

“Last season it was our first season ever, the team was two months old, we were there to do our best and hopefully get a result. But this season we’re there to win it and nothing else, there’s no other option.”

Al-Zaben added: “I’ve never seen the team this committed and working this hard because this season we’re literally taking it personal, every single game we’re there to win, and nothing else.”

Faisal has full faith in the team and says all their preseason performance testing showed significant improvement in the players’ physicality and agility after eight weeks of intense training.

“Everyone has improved drastically, which is incredible. So we’re after the trophy, we want to win, we want to go play in the Asian Women’s Champions League. So performance-wise we want it all and we’re ready,” said Faisal.