Football Training Camps in the UAE: Why Clubs Come in Winter

Every winter the same pictures appear on football clubs’ social media: palm trees beyond the touchline, players in shorts, while back home it’s minus fifteen. More and more often in recent years, that backdrop is the Emirates. The Russian Premier League’s Winter Cup was played in Abu Dhabi in February 2025 and 2026, and big European clubs come here for camps and friendlies during breaks in their season.

I’ve lived in the UAE for more than 15 years and I know why the winter here works so well for sport. Below: why clubs choose the Emirates, who has actually come (only confirmed cases, with sources), and what a fan who wants to combine a holiday with football can realistically do.

Why the UAE: weather, time zone and facilities

Weather. The average daytime high in Dubai is 26 °C in December, 24 °C in January and 25 °C in February, with nights around 14–16 °C. January averages five and a half days with rain in the whole month. Compare that with July, when the daytime average is almost 42 °C: training camps here are a winter story, just like the tourist season.

For a coach that means two sessions a day on natural grass, with no snow, no frozen pitches and no rescheduling.

A small time difference. The UAE is on UTC+4, Moscow on UTC+3. Players don’t need to reset their sleep, and clubs don’t need to move their training schedule. For European clubs the gap is small too: three to four hours in winter.

Everything is close. Hotels with their own pitches, stadiums, medical centres and sparring partners are all within an hour or an hour and a half’s drive. On one camp in one city, a team can play opponents from several countries without boarding a plane.

Tradition. European football has been coming here in winter for a long time. On 9 December 1986, Celtic and Liverpool met at Al Wasl Stadium in Dubai in a match between the Scottish and English champions, in front of 15,000 people. The tournament was called the Dubai Super Cup, later the Dubai Champions Cup.

Who has come: confirmed examples

Russian clubs and the RPL Winter Cup

The RPL Winter Cup is an annual friendly tournament for Russian Premier League clubs, held in its current form since 2019 (except 2021 and 2022). The last two editions were in Abu Dhabi:

• 2025. From 30 January to 11 February six clubs played in Abu Dhabi: Zenit, Spartak, Krasnodar, Rostov, Dynamo and CSKA. In the final on 11 February, Zenit beat Spartak 3–0.
• 2026. From 3 to 10 February, four clubs: Krasnodar, Zenit, CSKA and Dynamo. Spartak didn’t come this time. There are no draws in this tournament: a level score goes straight to penalties. CSKA won it: 2–2 in the deciding match with Zenit, then 4–3 on penalties. All six games were shown on Match TV and Match Premier.

The tournament’s most successful club is Spartak, winners in 2019, 2020, 2023 and 2024.

Where and when the 2027 Winter Cup will be held had not been announced when I checked. I’ll update this post once the dates are out.

Hazza bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain at night, its lattice facade lit up. Photo: Justwiki at Arabic Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

European clubs

The clearest recent example is Arsenal. In December 2022, while the English season was paused for the World Cup in Qatar, Mikel Arteta brought 27 players to the UAE, 13 of them from the academy. In Dubai Arsenal beat Lyon 3–0 (8 December) and Milan 2–1 (13 December) and won the Dubai Super Cup.

I’m deliberately not giving a long list of “who else came”: there are plenty of rumours about camps and far fewer confirmed reports. If your club has announced a camp in the UAE, message me and I’ll tell you where it is and how to get there.

How a fan can watch: an honest picture

Winter Cup matches. I couldn’t find public ticket sales for RPL Winter Cup matches. If you’re travelling for the tournament, follow the official sites and channels of the clubs and the league: the format and spectator access can change from year to year. If a match is closed to the public, it will be on TV.

Training sessions and friendlies. Access is up to the club. Some sessions are closed, and some friendlies are played on hotel pitches without spectators. Don’t turn up at a team base on the off chance: hotel security has every right to turn you away. Ask the club or a supporters’ club for the schedule of open events.

Local football. If you want a live stadium, try the UAE league, the ADNOC Pro League. It has 14 clubs. The most successful is Al Ain with 15 titles, also the 2025–26 champion. The biggest stadiums are Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi (about 42,000 seats) and Hazza bin Zayed in Al Ain (about 23,000). A match in Al Ain fits easily with a day trip to the oasis city.

Local football is an experience of its own. In April 2026 I went to see Dubai’s United FC, run by Andrea Pirlo, play Dibba Al Hisn, a traditional club from Sharjah. Entry was free, and for the first time I can remember the stands smelled not of beer but of sandalwood and oud. Local sheikhs sat right behind us. In February that year I’d also been to the winter camps, watching Zenit play Dynamo in Abu Dhabi. From the 2026–27 season, United FC plays in the Pro League.

Other sports in the same weeks. In February the UAE hosts the UAE Tour cycling race and the tennis tournaments in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The full list is in my UAE sports events calendar.

How I’d plan a trip around a training camp

1. Stay where they play. If the matches are in Abu Dhabi and your hotel is in Dubai, allow for the drive each way and the evening traffic into the city.
2. Check kick-off in local time. Russian tournaments often publish schedules in Moscow time. The UAE is one hour ahead.
3. Bring a layer. Winter evenings in an open stadium are cool, especially near the water and in the wind.
4. Keep a day for the country. Football takes a couple of hours a day. Spend the rest on Abu Dhabi, with the Grand Mosque, the Louvre and Qasr Al Watan in one day, or on Dubai: skyscrapers, the old town, the desert.
5. Entry rules. What you need to enter the UAE depends on your passport. Check the official sources before you travel.

How I can help

I don’t sell tickets to training camps and I can’t get you into closed sessions: that’s the clubs’ decision. But if you’re flying to the UAE for football, I can help with everything else: airport transfers, getting to the stadium and back, a dinner booking after the match and a plan for your free days.

For a day in the capital there’s my Abu Dhabi day tour: Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the Louvre and the Abu Dhabi waterfront. For a first look at Dubai, the Arabian Dream city tour. If you only need a car, see UAE transfers. Tickets to the season’s big sporting events are on the UAE events page.

Sources: Stavka, Profile, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Sport-Express (RPL Winter Cup); Wikipedia: Dubai climate normals, 2022–23 Arsenal F.C. season, Dubai Champions Cup, UAE Pro League. Checked 11 October 2026.