Love football? Enjoy watching it on television? Play it at times socially? Fancy yourself a Lionel Messi or a Cristiano Ronaldo but don’t have a team to play for? Its no wonder then that Kuwait has taken the next step forward by creating a website such as Sikkaa, a gateway for football lovers. Sikkaa is a social networking website, such as the likes of Facebook or Twitter, dedicated to one thing, and one thing only: Football.
It all started back in 2007. Abdullah Alshemmeri, founder of Sikkaa, was juggling two football squads when he had come up with the idea of starting a website to aid him in organizing his teams.
“Back then I had two football teams and I was responsible to find new challenges and organize those teams. I had the idea of starting a website to index all amateur football teams and players in a way to provide the teams with new challenges and the players with new options to join teams”.
“Social networks were getting popular in the GCC region. With that in mind, I thought of a concept to start my own specialized social network for football”.
Although the concept was developed in 2007, according to Abdullah, he lacked the experience as well as means to start up a website. Around 2010, he continued to map out and plan his vision and by February of 2011 Sikkaa was launched and has since gained mass popularity amongst amateur footballers. The website was created with one thing in mind: to give non-professional football players the opportunity to show off their skills on the field by creating their own teams or to join other teams.
For all ye non technologically advanced people, don’t be afraid, for the website is one of the simplest creations to navigate around. As a beginner, once log onto the main page, a new member is given the opportunity to join by creating a new member profile. Once you register for your account, you are then given the opportunity to register your skills, as well as your age, height, weight, and what district/city you live in. This gives players the chance to join or find a team based on their location.
The fact that the website also has days and times set up as well as positions on the field available, makes it all the more specific for you to locate players based on their availability and positions to fill in for your team. At the moment, the website is currently only available to players in Kuwait, but one of Abdullah's objectives is to expand Sikkaa all over the GCC, to give players all around the Gulf this wonderful opportunity.
What is the incentive, you might ask, for joining the website? Firstly, its free and based on the amount of time it has taken me to set up a profile, it takes 5 minutes of your time. Secondly, if you have a team and want to verse other squads and can't seem to find any options, sign up and enjoy finding other teams, and enjoy some new healthy competitions. Thirdly, now that the weather is cooling down, what better way to spend it than outdoors playing sports? So if you don't have a team and are an individual lover of football, this is an amazing opportunity to get fit and healthy, and if that isn’t your objective, than to meet new people surely should be.
So get proactive and follow Sikkaa on Twitter @Sikkaadotcom, or just simply follow the aforementioned steps and log on to www.Sikkaa.com
– Ghadeer Al-Otaibi
