Originally established in 2006 with one senior mens rugby team, Dubai Sharks now has over 850 members, from ages 3 - 55, playing rugby and netball across all divisions in the UAE! We are a family club, passionate about the games, sportsmanship, community, inclusivity, and wearing the Sharks colours with pride.
Dubai Sharks is a not-for-profit club which means everything we do is for the good of our players, families and club. As a result, we've created an amazing community to be a part of…like our motto says 'we are seriously rugby, seriously netball…and seriously social!'
2006 - Hong Kong Potbellies form the Arabian Potbellies RFC in UAE
2008 - Elected Full Member of the AGRFU
2009 - Elected Full Member of UAERF 2011 - Rebranded as Dubai Sharks RFC
2012 - Dubai Sharks RFC merges with Dubai Frogs 2015 - The first Dubai Sharks RFC Ladies team launches
2016 - The Warriors; mini and junior, join Dubai Sharks RFC
2020 - Eagles Knights, mini and youth, merge bringing 220 junior players to Sharks
2022 - Dubai Sharks launches Senior Netball with 4 teams
2022 - Sharks first Junior Netball team is formed
2023 - Establishment of a Sharks home ground at Al Habtoor Polo
2023 - Sharks Junior Netball officially launches with 8 teams
As a not-for-profit club we are fueled on the dedication of an army of volunteers. 7 members sit on our Executive Committee and a further 15 on our General Committee, to oversee club management throughout the year. But, we couldn't do it without further help from our team of 76 professional Coaches, 30 brilliant Team Managers and 60 rugby trained Medics who give hours every week throughout the season.
A member of the club since 2017, Chairmans don’t get more hands on than Charlie Taylor. You’ll usually find him up a live stream tv tower, designing kit, encouraging the youth players or hosting senior social nights with questionable humour. This guy lives and breathes Sharks. Additionally, as a business owner in the UAE, he brings experienced management skills perfect for the chair role.
Fresh to the role in 2023, Amit Bir has hit the ground running, literally whilst playing for our senior mens, and figuratively whilst organising our seniors players into a cohesive, professional and seriously social unit! His enthusiasm for rugby and specifically Sharks is motivating and contagious. When he's not playing or managing he just so happens to be an Emirates 777 Captain also.
Dedicated to UAE rugby since the early days of his son playing for Arabian Knights; Adam Ralph was hugely instrumental in the merge of 220 kids over to Dubai Sharks in 2020 and has been essential to Dubai Sharks management ever since! A friendly face known to all the kids in the club, Adam brings a calmness and high level of corporate organisation skills to the 35 teams and 520 kids he now oversees.
Having lived in Dubai for 20 years and played netball for 18 of them, is impressive enough… let alone being our youngest director on the committee! There’s nothing Hollie Lambert doesn't know about the sport; combine this with her professional HR experience and she’s the ideal person to manage the day-to-day, and seasonal requirements of a large netball club across all age groups.
2022 saw the arrival of this rugby legend to Dubai Sharks. England's Captain from 2016 to 2019, and their most capped hooker of all time, now brings his invaluable expertise and skills to all areas of the club, including being a mentor and role model for our rugby players and even helping the under 4s team that his son plays in! We might be his new rugby club but we are mostly defintely also his fan club!
