Originally from Middlesbrough in the UK, 32-year-old James Masterman has lived in the UAE for more than a decade and currently owns a 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe. Having previously driven a Jeep Cherokee, Mitsubishi Pajero and then a Jeep Wrangler, the professional football coach runs Soccer Kids, coaching children's football and also organises a number of adult five-a-aside leagues and provides portable football pitches for events.
Clearly a practical purchaser, Masterman must have cut an unusual sight as he walked around car showrooms looking for the right vehicle. "When I was test driving cars, I carried around two large bags stuffed with footballs. The salesmen must've thought I was unhinged, but space was the crucial thing when making the decision. In terms of football-equipment carrying capacity, the Tahoe - with its boxier shape - was significantly more spacious than the GMC Yukon and the Cadillac Escalade, even though it was a bit cheaper, so it was an easy choice to make.
"You may be interested to know the maximum amount of equipment I've had in the Tahoe is six bags containing 14 footballs and eight sets of 5ft x 8ft portable goals, which is quite a feat I can tell you - it took some time and I was quite amazed to fit them all in," he laughs.
Having been on the books of English professional football club Middlesbrough from nine-years-old until being released at 17 before studying for a degree in sports and exercise science, Masterman is perfectly placed to be teaching future generations of UAE footballers.
With more than 1,000 children across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah between three to 16 years old to coach every week, Masterman has done a lot of driving since purchasing the car from Al Ghandi in Dubai in January last year for Dh130,000 - already racking up an impressive 90,000 kilometres.
"We teach the youngsters but also run the adult amateur leagues, which is where they tend to move onto after they turn 17. I'm quite proud of the fact we had one pupil that went on to the German National Academy of Football at 14 years old, which is the breeding ground of future Germany internationals. He was always a standout player and we could see from the age of nine he had potential, but he had to grab his chance abroad. It's very difficult to produce top-level footballers in this country with the restrictions on expatriates playing with national children through to a competitive level," he explains.
Masterman is a well-known face in Dubai's amateur football scene as a player, winning four league titles during his time in the UAE with The Dogs and now The Vets and is cashing in on the UAE's burgeoning amateur football scene with his new venture of state-of-the-art mobile football pitches. "Since I started Street Soccer in Dubai, my driving has increased a lot as I follow the portable pitches to events and venues around the UAE. We now have six different setups perfect for five-a-side and four-a-side matches that prove really popular at events with the kids and often the adults too," he says.
Admittedly lacking in automobile knowledge, Masterman is very fond of his Chevrolet, but more for practical reasons than its specifications. "This is the first new car I've owned and when I first bought it I wanted to drive it all the time but it's most important for my job and the Tahoe makes my work as easy as possible. I think it looks pretty good, but in all seriousness - a car is a car. All I really know is it has a powerful engine, costs Dh160 to fill up and holds a heck of a lot of footballs," he laughs.
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
All about the Sevens
Cape Town Sevens on Saturday and Sunday: Pools A – South Africa, Kenya, France, Russia; B – New Zealand, Australia, Spain, United States; C – England, Scotland, Argentina, Uganda; D – Fiji, Samoa, Canada, Wales
HSBC World Sevens Series standing after first leg in Dubai 1 South Africa; 2 New Zealand; 3 England; 4 Fiji; 5 Australia; 6 Samoa; 7 Kenya; 8 Scotland; 9 France; 10 Spain; 11 Argentina; 12 Canada; 13 Wales; 14 Uganda; 15 United States; 16 Russia
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Meydan race card
6.30pm: Baniyas (PA) Group 2 Dh125,000 (Dirt) 1,400m
7.05pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 (D) 1,200m
7.40pm: Maiden (TB) Dh165,000 (D) 1,400m
8.15pm: Handicap (TB) Dh170,000 (D) 1,900m
8.50pm: Rated Conditions (TB) Dh240,000 (D) 1,600m
9.25pm: Handicap (TB) Dh175,000 (D)1,200m
10pm: Handicap (TB) Dh165,000 (D) 1,400m
Top%2010%20most%20competitive%20economies
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Power: 110 horsepower
Torque: 147Nm
Price: From Dh59,700
On sale: now
The specs: Fenyr SuperSport
Price, base: Dh5.1 million
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 800hp @ 7,100pm
Torque: 980Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 13.5L / 100km
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
BACK%20TO%20ALEXANDRIA
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more from Janine di Giovanni
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
The specs
Engine: 5.0-litre supercharged V8
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Power: 575bhp
Torque: 700Nm
Price: Dh554,000
On sale: now
