Fans dream of bringing Ali Centre to UAE

A UAE-based business consultant Dariush Soudi  is earnestly pursuing his dream of opening up a Muhammad Ali Centre in the Middle East to honour the legacy of ‘The Greatest’ encouraged by the tremendous following he received after opening up a fan page on social networking site Facebook.

When he came here two years ago and spoke to people regarding opening up a Muhammad Ali Centre in Dubai, although the feedback was positive there were concerns whether people would be interested since the former heavyweight boxing champion had finished fighting 30 years ago.

“I believed differently. To have the Muhammad Ali Centre as a museum and cultural centre. To help children would be amazing for the country, tourism and UAE nationals,” he said.

Undeterred by the mixed response, Iranian-born Soudi, 45, who spent most of life in Manchester in the United Kingdom, decided to test the waters on Facebook two months ago.

“Myself and my business partner Mehraj Sally decided to test the market by opening a fan page to see what the support would be for the centre,” he said.

The night he posted it, he went to bed hoping that by the next day they would have at least 50 fans. Instead, the next morning they had more than 500. “The response was incredible. We managed to attract 21,500 in less than two weeks, all of whom wanted us  to open up a Muhammad Ali Centre,” he said.

However, the icing on the cake came when he got a call from the Muhammad Ali Centre in Lousville, Kentucky.

“We had tried contacting the Louisville Centre earlier, but got no response.  Suddenly out of the blue, two weeks into the campaign, we received a call from centre asking if we were available to speak to them at 11pm that evening. We rushed to the meeting room and sat by the phone. When it rang, it was Mrs Muhammad Ali (Lonnie) on the phone. She was very interested, keen and invited us over to America,” he said.

Asked what was the motivation for the project, Soudi said he had reflected on the philosophy of life after suffering a heart attack two years ago and went to Spain for a couple of months.

“I asked myself was life everything about money and business? After a lot of meditation and soul searching, I realised that I really wanted to work with Muhammad Ali who is my hero.

“Thirty or 40 years ago my granddad and father used to wake me up in early morning to watch Muhammad Ali fight. Then he was not a world champion or greatest of all time either,” he recalled.

“He's had challenges in his life – health, financial and so forth. Being a black man in America in the 60s was difficult - fighting against the Vietnam War, standing up for peace, being a Muslim in a highly Christian country. He’s won all those battles. So he's a kind of guy I admire,” said Soudi, who indulged in martial arts but never was a boxer.

“I researched on internet and learnt about an Ali Centre in Louisville, Kentucky. They offer opportunities to children helping them lead great lives. With further research I was convinced that it would be best to have a centre in the UAE,” he said.

But his visit to the US, as a guest of the Muhammad Ali Centre, turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax not least because he could not meet his childhood hero. “I met everybody but Ali himself. The day I was due to meet him, he was called to New York for the launch of an event. They actually apologised to me. I took about seven flights to get there on the day he flew to New York. I hope to return and see him,” he said.

He was also critical of the manner in which the Muhammad Ali Centre was being run.

“I spoke to the Ali family entourage but realised they were not quite ready to take it outside the US. The reason for that is quite disappointing really. They need to be more organised and require some support.  When they have that, they will take it outside the US. We even talked about having a university curriculum to take the Muhammad Ali message to students and help graduates and the younger children find the best within,” he said.

The reason, he feels, is because people of Louisville, where Ali was born, hadn’t been sold the idea of the Ali Centre yet  because no sooner he got famous than he left for Arizona and trained in Florida.

He said: “For Ali’s family, opening an Ali Centre in Kentucky, Louisville, is like coming a full circle, however, people don’t understand that the centre is self-funding. They even think their government and council is paying for it. There is a lot of misrepresentation, miscommunication and mismanagement. I was saddened to see it was so poorly managed considering it was an association with the greatest of all time.

“Unfortunately it is something most famous boxers suffer from – being misguided and their trust being used and abused. Ali family is quite hurt and the centre has lost more than a $100 million.”

He believes the Muhammad Ali  Centre is ready to be taken to the next level.

“They have had many people donating like Angelina Jolie ($500,000), Lennox Lewis (a million dollars) and Microsoft putting in a few million dollars, too,” he said.

However, they were impressed by Soudi’s passion and drive and the work he has done here for him to be shortlisted as one of the candidates for the position of CEO of the Muhammad Ali Centre in Louisville.

Asked what the objectives of the planned centre in the UAE are, he said: “Muhammad Ali Centre has six core principals - confidence, conviction, dedication, respect, spirituality and giving. It’s like a tour of Ali's life and yet an informative message to the world. Instead of people thinking of Ali only as a boxing figure, it’s about taking his legacy forward,” he said.

He revealed that although Ali, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease is sick, he travels over 300 days a year.

“Unfortunately he is not well at all. He is wheel-chair bound. He can’t speak, is hand fed. It is really sad. The whole idea to have an Ali Centre outside US is to send this message worldwide especially to the Muslim world.”

Asked about the prospects of Ali visiting the UAE, Soudi said: “I actually asked whether Muhammad Ali could come to the Middle East. It’s funny because through our Facebook campaign we had the government of Pakistan contact us that if Ali ever comes to the Middle East, they are more than happy to make it a state visit to Pakistan also. We had the Egypt government contacting actually to set up an Ali Centre in Egypt which is incredible.”

Soudi’s mission is to bring “The Muhammad Ali center to the Middle East to inspire children to be the best they can be. To positively educate individuals to work together, respect each other and above all contribute.”

“Our goal is to have the centre ready here in UAE before February 2012 and to invite Muhammad Ali to celebrate his birthday here with us,” he stated.

Asked how ordinary fans could meet him, he said: “The Muhammad Ali I know loves the amount of love he receives every day from people and nothing he would like more than meeting the ordinary fan.”

The opening of a Muhammad Ali Centre in UAE is just a concept at the moment. “I have promised fans that I will send him a personal invitation on the opening event to meet with him,” he said.

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