Why I Built Clubble: The Story Behind the UAE's Sports Academy App

I grew up in Birmingham, UK and studied sport at GCSE and continued into higher education.

What I did not know back then was that football would shape my entire career and eventually lead me to build an app that is now changing how UAE families find sports academies for their children.

From Birmingham streets to non league football

Birmingham gave me my football education. I played non league football in the UK and worked my way into coaching while I was still playing. There is something about non league that teaches you fast. How to read players. How to manage different personalities. How to get the best out of a team with limited resources.

While I was playing and coaching, I qualified as a PE teacher. Teaching gave me a structure for the coaching instincts I already had. Lesson planning, behaviour management, working with parents. Every one of those skills now feeds directly into how I run sessions today.

Coaching the best young talent in Birmingham

One of the most enjoyable chapters of my coaching career was coaching the East Birmingham District U11s squad. We had some of the best young talent in the city, players who had already signed for professional clubs across the midlands such as Aston Villa, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and clubs from the surrounding area.

What I saw then is what still drives me now.

Those conditions were not always easy to find in Birmingham. The talent was there but the right club, coach and environment did not always line up. The UAE has all of it. Brilliant coaches, strong academies and facilities most cities can only dream of. The one thing missing is what connects a parent to the right academy. That is the gap Clubble was built to close.

Why I moved to Dubai

I chose to move to Dubai because it is one of the most active cities in the world. The facilities are world class. Schools treat sport as a priority, not an afterthought. The weather, the infrastructure, the ambition, all of it pointed to a place where I could grow as a coach and a teacher.

Today I work full time as a PE teacher and continue to coach men's football in Dubai. I am currently Head Coach at Streetleague FCC. Across schools, academies and clubs, I have now coached hundreds of children in the UAE.

And every single day, I hear the same question.

The question that became Clubble

In school corridors, on the touchline, in WhatsApp groups, parents kept asking me the same thing.

At first I answered from personal experience. But the pattern was impossible to ignore. Parents in the UAE have no proper way to find sports academies for their children. They rely on Instagram searches that show whoever paid for ads. WhatsApp recommendations limited to who they happen to know. Word of mouth that depends entirely on luck. Random Google searches that lead to outdated websites with broken links.

Meanwhile academies were spending serious money on Instagram ads hoping the right parents would scroll past at the right moment. Most parents never did.

There was no neutral, searchable, complete directory of sports academies in the UAE. Nothing where a parent could filter by sport, age, location and gender and see every option in one place.

So I built it.

What Clubble actually is

Clubble is the sports academy directory app for the UAE. It is free for parents. You open the app, search by sport, set your radius, filter by age and gender and see every academy that matches.

For parents it removes the guesswork. Every option in your area, in one place, side by side.

For academies it removes the dependency on paid Instagram ads. Parents searching for your sport in your area find you directly.

What I have learned coaching in the UAE

A few things became clear after coaching hundreds of children here.

Sport is a priority for UAE families

Parents want their children active. They are willing to invest. The demand is enormous.

The supply is huge but disorganised

Hundreds of academies across football, cricket, swimming, rugby, basketball, tennis, gymnastics, martial arts and more. Quality varies. Visibility is unfair. Smaller, well run academies get drowned out by louder ones with bigger ad budgets.

Word of mouth is still king

Parents trust other parents and trusted coaches far more than they trust an Instagram ad. Clubble formalises that trust and scales it across the whole country.

Children benefit when they find the right fit

A child in the right academy stays. A child in the wrong one quits. Choosing well matters more than most parents realise.

The long term vision

My goal with Clubble is straightforward. Support as many parents and academies as possible to get as many children playing for an academy across the UAE.

That means a parent in Sharjah finding a cricket club they did not know existed. A family in Abu Dhabi discovering a netball academy ten minutes from home. An academy in Dubai filling sessions without spending thousands on Instagram ads.

Every download, every search, every successful match between a child and a club is the vision working.

What is next

Clubble launches to parents on 15 August 2026. Academy onboarding is live. We are building the most complete and trusted sports directory the UAE has ever had.

If you are a parent, the app is free. Find a sports club near you in minutes when we launch.

If you are an academy owner, list your club. Get found by the parents who are actively searching for what you offer.

This is just the start.