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The organizing committee of the 4th edition of GCC Games, scheduled in Doha, Qatar, from May 14 to 22, has appointed UAE’s Omar Al Zubair Al Marzouqi, an internationally certified handball referee and elite-level technical observer, to oversee the technical and officiating aspects of the men’s handball tournament.
The GCC Games are one of the region’s largest multi-sport gatherings and form part of broader efforts among Gulf states to strengthen sporting co-operation and athlete development.
International, Olympic, and world-level referee Omar Al Marzouqi began his playing career with Al Nasr Club from 1984 to 1998 before transitioning into officiating.
He earned his continental badge in Muscat in 2000 and his international badge in Kuwait in 2003. He was honored with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Creative Sports Award and the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Sports Excellence Award after officiating the 2011 World Championship final between Germany and Denmark in Greece—breaking the long-standing European monopoly on refereeing handball world finals since the founding of the International Handball Federation.
The handball tournament will see participation from the national teams of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, with the competition kicking off on Thursday. Qatar and the UAE will meet in the opening of the tournament. All matches will be held at Al Duhail Sports Hall.
The tournament’s technical committee is chaired by Hamad Misfer Al-Nuaimi from Qatar and includes Magdy Mirza from Bahrain, Mohamed Hassan Al-Suwaidi from the UAE, Fareed Al-Saleh from Saudi Arabia, and Shabeeb Al Hajri from Kuwait.
The Referees Committee is chaired by Matar Thani Al-Zra’a and includes Omar Al-Zubair Al-Marzouqi from the UAE, Ali Ghanem Al Dosari from Saudi Arabia, Mirza Salman from Bahrain, Saleh Jumaan Al-Kindi from Qatar, and Hani Hassan Abl from Kuwait.
The tournament matches will be officiated by several GCC and continental referees, in addition to neutral international referees from Moldova and Romania.
Competitions held as part of the GCC Games will unfold across ten venues: the Women’s Sports Hall, Aspire Dome, Qatar Sports Club, Khalifa International Tennis, Squash and Badminton Complex, Qatar Billiards and Snooker Federation Hall, Al Gharafa Sports Club, Lusail Shooting Range, Qatar Racing and Equestrian Club, Qatar Bowling Federation Hall, and Duhail Sports Hall.
The UAE is competing across a wide range of sports, including table tennis, equestrian, swimming, bowling, billiards, boxing, fencing, shooting, 3×3 basketball, taekwondo, athletics, handball, snooker, volleyball, archery, padel tennis, and karate.
The UAE is represented at the games by 164 athletes who will compete across 17 individual and team sports. The national contingent features 115 men and 49 women.
