Qatar Basketball Association Hopes To Make Game As Popular As Soccer

Qatar Basketball Association President Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman-al-Thani announced yesterday the organization is planning to make basketball "as popular as" soccer within the next five years, according to the GULF TIMES. Saoud said that plans are "afoot to popularize the game by engaging the expatriate community in a big way so that they can identify with the various clubs teams in the country and turn out in large numbers." Saoud said, "Basketball is a very popular sport among the expatriates, especially from Lebanon, the Philippines, Jordan, the U.S. and some other countries and it is imperative that we at the federation devise ways to attract them to games." Qatar has "performed well" at the GCC Games and on the Asian level, and Saoud is "hopeful that with clubs recruiting quality foreign players for their matches, the popularity of the sport is only going to grow" (GULF TIMES, 1/31).