{"id":21979,"date":"2026-01-07T17:18:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/?p=21979"},"modified":"2026-01-07T17:18:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T13:18:33","slug":"manchester-city-abu-dhabi-cup-kicks-off-friday-with-record-250-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/2026\/01\/07\/manchester-city-abu-dhabi-cup-kicks-off-friday-with-record-250-teams\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester City Abu Dhabi Cup Kicks Off Friday With Record 250 Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"read\">The seventh edition of the Manchester City Abu Dhabi Cup youth football tournament will kick off on Friday at Zayed Sports City in <a href=\"https:\/\/abudhabiverse.co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Abu Dhabi<\/a>, with a record 250 teams from 20 countries across four continents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"read\">The three-day tournament, running until 11th January, is expected to attract more than 8,000 players and visitors for the first time. Teams will compete in age groups ranging from under-8 to under-16 age groups.<\/p>\n<p class=\"read\">Women\u2019s football will also feature prominently, with 44 girls\u2019 teams taking part, including two from Manchester City\u2019s Academy in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"read\">Manchester City legend Nedum Onuoha is the official ambassador for the Cup and believes this event is crucial in nurturing the sport\u2019s future stars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"read\">The former defender, who represented Manchester City between 2004 and 2012, said, \u201cTournaments like this are so important for young players, both in terms of their on-field development, but also personal development too. I am looking forward to more of the same this weekend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read\">Simon Hewitt, Head of Football Operations MENA, City Football Group and Tournament Director of Manchester City Abu Dhabi Cup, said, \u201cThe line-up of teams from across the world is incredible and we\u2019re expecting a brilliant standard of play. To everyone attending this weekend, we offer our sincere thanks for helping make the tournament what it is, the biggest and best in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The seventh edition of the Manchester City Abu Dhabi Cup youth football tournament will kick off on Friday at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi, with a record 250 teams from 20 countries across four continents. The three-day tournament, running until 11th January, is expected to attract more than 8,000 players and visitors for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21983,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21979\/revisions\/21983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressreleasenetwork.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}