I know it’s gotta burn my mom’s ass that there’s a big “Fly Emirates” logo on the jersey of her favorite FC, but she’s gotta be happy that the UAE has caved and will now allow Andy Ram, an Israeli doubles-tennis player, to participate in an ATP tournament in Dubai.
Weirdly, the ESPN article (derived from Reuters & AP) treats the ban on Israelis as though it’s a UAE response to the fighting in Gaza, and not, y’know, long-standing official policy. (Allegedly, they’ve been loosening up a little, partly in response to Dubai’s growth in the diamond trade).
But keeping the surreal quotient high:
On Wednesday, Swedish authorities said that Sweden and Israel will play their first-round Davis Cup tennis match in an empty arena next month because of security concerns.
Anyway, I still won’t do PR for Malaysia.
most amazing to me is that the Wall Street Journal withdrew their sponsorship of this week’s Dubai women’s tournament, and also coverage in the WSJ, because Shahar Peer was denied entry – and the Tennis Channel also withdrew coverage of the event – I guess they had no choice but to allow And Ram to play next week –
as for Arsenal FC playing at the new Emirates Stadium in London, I’m sure most people will just refer to it as Arsenal Stadium –
whatever you do, don’t do a youtube search on “Andy Ram”
Dear Old Mum, sadly – although the old stadium it replaced was known as Highbury after the area of London it sat in – the new Arsenal Stadium is universally known as The Emirates. One of the prime movers at Arsenal behind the new stadium was David Dein who is a Brother, a cousin of my dad.