Last week my buddy Ali was ranting about some UAE football final results over shawarma, and I realized I couldn’t name the last five President Cup winners. Felt dumb since I cover local sports trivia on my blog. So I told myself, “Right, gonna figure this out properly and share how I did it.”
The Clueless Search Begins
Started simple: typed “UAE President Cup winner 2024” straight into Google. Big mistake. Got flooded with old articles from 2023, betting sites, and news about horse racing trophies. Clicked ten links deep – nada. Realized I needed exact keywords and reliable sources only.
Narrowing Down the Hunt
Switched tactics. Searched “UAE FA official competitions” instead and found their garbage PDF archives (seriously, scanned documents from 2009?). Then remembered the Asian Football Confederation site. Scrolled through their UAE section – bingo! Found a clean 2024 final match report tucked under “Tournaments.” Al Ain crushed it 4-1 against Al Nasr last May. Made notes:
- 2024: Al Ain FC
- 2023: Shabab Al Ahli (extra time madness!)
Ghost Results & Frustration
Backtracking to 2020 got messy. AFC site skipped 2020-21. Wikipedia had zero citations. Had to dig through local Arabic portals like * using Google Translate. Discovered pandemic cancellations and weirdly found 2020’s cancelled announcement sandwiched between a camel festival ad and a date harvest report. Classic.
Cross-Checking Like a Madman
Wouldn’t trust one source, so I:
- Compared Gulf News match recaps with UAEFA’s terrible “News” tab
- Verified 2022’s Sharjah FC win through three Dubai Sports Channel tweets
- Screenshotted trophy ceremony pics from clubs’ Facebook pages
Spent 90 minutes confirming dates like a detective chasing leads on a cold case.
The Final Trophy List
After caffeine overload and two dead-end Reddit threads, here’s what survived my fact-checking gauntlet:
- 2024: Al Ain FC
- 2023: Shabab Al Ahli
- 2022: Sharjah FC
- 2021: Cancelled (COVID)
- 2020: Shabab Al Ahli
- 2019: Al Jazira Club
Boy that was messy. Proof you can’t trust quick searches for regional sports history. Next time Ali asks trivia over lamb chops, I’ll throw this list at him with matching goal highlights. Done!
