EIM launches SportsOnline

Once users log onto www.sportsonline.ae, they will be able to browse and interact with the world's major sporting activities. A variety of innovative features will provide unparalleled 3D coverage.

Across all major sporting events, users will now have access to up-to-the-minute coverage, picture galleries, statistics, team profiles, calendars of events, analytical reports and online chat and opinion forums.

"SportsOnline.ae will give users around the world access to both regional and international sporting events and allow them to browse related topics at their leisure in both English and Arabic," commented Maroua Naim, General Manager, EIM. "Fans can now spend literally hours becoming immersed in their favorite sports and become experts on players, future games, the history of teams and players, among many more aspects. This will be the most extensive coverage available on a bi-lingual Internet site."

The bi-lingual site aims to attract more Arabic Internet users in the region. One of the key barriers to increasing Internet penetration throughout the Middle East has been the lack of quality, popular Arabic content. As the region's leading Internet service provider, EIM is helping to spearhead the development of bi-lingual content online.

The first event to be hosted on the site will be the 2003 world youth football championships, being hosted here in the UAE. Being sponsored by Samsung Electronics, the online coverage on Sportsonline.ae of the youth football championships will include exclusive added features including a web directory of official team web sites and a daily e-mail based newsletter.

A dedicated bi-lingual editorial will work around the clock to ensure immediate updates on the sporting community and up-to-the-minute interviews and photographs of the event will be available online.

"It is essential that this region begins to develop bi-lingual online content if we are to see an increase in users that feel the benefit of the Net," added Ashraf Gameel, Marketing Manager, Internet Services, EIM. "We have been working hard at EIM to develop partnerships with regional content providers in order to bring these services to the consumer."

EIM has partnered with Arab Inform, a leading content provider in the region to provide much of the content for the site.