AT THE BUZZER
Natl Youth Teams’ Director Taylor hunts hard for talent
Doha Stadium Plus
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
THE last time American Robert Taylor was in the country, it was as the coach of highly-successful Qatar Sports Club.
He helped the side to three Qatar League titles in four years (1989, ’90 and ’91) before moving on. The biggest achievement of his career came in ’94, when he took the Egypt national team to the FIBA World Championship in Toronto, Canada.
A lot has changed since Taylor’s last stint in Qatar, but his love for the game and penchant for finding and moulding talent remains the same.
Judging by the way the new Director of Qatar’s National Youth Teams carefully made notes as youngsters dribbled, ducked and passed the ball around at the Al Gharafa Training Gym last week, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the second coming although he has a slightly different role this time.
Apr 1st, 2023
Jan 31, 2023
Four a change!
Aju George Chris
DSP
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
ANOTHER season, another new team and double the quota of professional players — the Qatar League is all set for a rocking start.
On the opening day at the Al Rayyan Indoor Hall on Saturday, Al Gharafa will face Al Wakrah and Al Arabi will lock horns with Al Shamal. Al Gharafa Indoor Hall is the other venue of the competition.
The Qatar Basketball Federation (QBF), in a bid to make the competition more appealing to fans, has gone in for a major change. QBF’s Technical Secretary for Competitions Essam Lotfy Ali elaborated.
“Until last season, each team could field two professionals and two players of African origin. This year, we did away with the ‘African players’ category and, instead, each team can now sign four professionals, be it from the USA, Europe or Africa,” said Ali.
“Only three of them can be fielded at a time. But the restriction doesn’t apply to the Heir Apparent’s Cup and Emir’s Cup. This way, we hope to give all teams some sort of a level playing field. It’s an experiment and we’ll review it at the end of the season. If needed, we’ll make necessary changes,” he said.
QBF President Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told Doha Stadium Plus the move would bring more excitement to the tournament.
“Our league is currently the best in the Gulf region. And we want to improve it further. By bringing the best coaches and talent from around the globe to Qatar, we’ve made the competitions much more exciting,” said Sheikh Saoud, who is also Secretary General of the Qatar Olympic Committee.
A direct consequence of the rule change is that the strong teams would grow even stronger and untouchable.
For example, El Jaish, the 2007-08 champions, were barred from signing professionals until last season as they featured significantly more African players than other teams. They finished fifth two seasons ago and were third last time.
This season, they took advantage of the new rule and promptly snapped up American guard Anthony Roberson, who has featured in NBA sides Memphis Grizzlies, New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls.
Dec 12, 2023
BASKETBALL IN DOHA cont'd Tyler Beesley
One of the individuals I spoke with was Robert Taylor, who has coached basketball in the Middle East for over 30 years, and for the last four years has been working with the Qatar National Basketball team as their technical director. During the 4th Quarter, I finally spoke with him, and was able to learn a lot about the development of the QBF, some of the challenges that he faces, and also about some potential upcoming rule changes that may have an impact on bringing Westerners into the league. He indicated that the development of the league has been slow, as many of the good youth players tend to abandon basketball for either handball or soccer, which are popular Qatari sports and whose federations have more resources than the QBF. These federations are using their money, and paying the supreme youth athletes to exclusively play their sport. For instance, Mr. Taylor indicated that he had a very good 12 year old basketball player, but that the soccer federation persuaded him to stop playing basketball, and focus solely on soccer by paying him the equivalent of $500 per month. This has resulted in basketball getting second and third tier athletes, and has forced the QBF to start to recruit players at a younger age to increase their fondness for basketball which will hopefully dissuade them from choosing to play a different sport. At this time, the majority of the National Basketball team consists of naturalized citizens from Somalia, Senegal, and South Sudan.