Sport

UAE head coach unveiling featuring 'Newcastle legend' goes viral

UAE head coach unveiling featuring 'Newcastle legend' goes viral
Football managers are TOO sensitive today!
Homestand Sports / VideoElephant

The unveiling video for the head coach role at a brand new Dubai football club featuring a 'Newcastle legend' has gone viral.

Soheil Var, who posts regular updates on TikTok as soheil.var, is starting up a brand new professional football club called Al Qabila in just 365 days.

Before that, he documented his journey trying to make it as a professional footballer and said there were a number of ups and downs along the way, including getting scammed by agents.

Now, Soheil is setting up Al Qabila and has promised to look after players, pay them well, have all the best resources, have a clear pathway to pro youth academy and more.

The aim at the end of the first year is to have a men's team and a youth academy for players who feel they haven't been treated fairly or given an opportunity to show what they can do.

And on the next step on that journey, Soheil has appointed what he describes a 'Newcastle legend' as the new head coach of his club.

@soheil.var

The Official Head Coach of Al Qabila FC is… ⚽️⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ #football #soccer #futebol #futbol #soccerplayer #footballplayer #footballer #fifa #alqabilafc #sportsontiktok #soheilvar #dubai #uae

There were a number of potential candidates but Steven Taylor was the preferred candidate.

The 38-year-old came through the ranks at the Magpies' academy to go on and make more than 200 appearances for Newcastle United across 13 seasons with the majority of them coming in the Premier League.

He made 29 appearances for England U21s too.

After Newcastle, Taylor played for Peterborough United, Wellington Phoenix and Odisha.

His managerial career recently started at Gulf United in Dubai where he won back-to-back promotions into the second tier.

Steven Taylor in action for Newcastle UnitedIan MacNicol, Getty Images

The unveiling video has more than 1m views on TikTok alone at the time of writing and more than 122k likes; there have been a number of comments on it too.

Jupes said: "Nah but you gotta get Coach Rafaz and Coach Christo as some of the staff."

Alistair said: "I was expecting Jose Mourinho."

WFC EDEN said: "People who though it would be Jose Mourinho."

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Conversation (0)
x