Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Texas Health Resources – Dallas (THR) to create a joint centre of excellence for research, training, performance and sports medicine in North Texas, United States.
“This is an opportunity for Aspetar, the world's leading specialised orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital to have a joint venture with THR. With this MoU, we are planning to establish a Sports Medicine Centre of Excellence in the US. Now we are taking our expertise to other places and it is just the beginning," Mohamed Khalifa al-Suwaidi, CEO of AZF and director general of Aspetar told Gulf Times.
The MoU was signed Tuesday by Dr Abdulaziz al-Kuwari, CEO of Aspetar and Dr Steven Singleton, Director of Sports Medicine at THR on the occasion of the visit to Aspetar by Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of US Chamber of Commerce, and a delegation from the US Chamber of Commerce and THR.
During his tour of Aspetar, Donohue expressed his admiration of the high level of facilities and expertise at Aspetar. Donohue stated that the collaboration between AZF and THR was brought through a group of visionaries in Qatar. "They have a rich background in sports medicine, surgeries and rehabilitation and put all that together to build such an example of world class facility," he said.
“We are extremely proud that THR is interested to collaborate with us to establish an Aspetar-like orthopaedic hospital in Texas which is a new indication of the proficient level that Aspetar has reached in the field of sports medicine and the international reputation it has gained through its unique expertise,” explained al-Suwaidi.
“We see this collaboration as another sign of the strong and deep relationship between Qatar and the USA on different levels, and the timing couldn’t be better with Qatar being the host of the FIFA World Cup 2022 and North Texas being a site for matches when the US hosts the World Cup in 2026. For us, this collaboration furthers our progress towards achieving AZF vision to become the Reference in Sports Excellence world-wide by 2020,” al-Suwaidi added.
“Aspetar is a very well known international destination for football players and sports people with injuries or those who want to improve their training. We hope, they will bring this expertise to our group of physios and physiotherapists in Texas,” said Dr Singleton.
“As North America is hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026, football is one of the rapidly growing games in the US and the young population in Texas is fast growing. Our hope is that we will have completed the facility in Texas within two to three years. We will have some of the physios of Aspetar working with us and some of our doctors are coming over here to work with Aspetar,” continued Dr Singleton .
The MoU paves the way for three core elements of collaboration through the new affiliation: a research programme to advance the science of sports medicine and to promote and propagate the services of the centre of excellence; an outreach/sports performance programme to provide services to and meet the unique but related needs of professional athletes and teams, and collegiate and high school athletes; and clinical services to support the research, outreach and sports performance programmes.
The US high-level delegation included Khush Chosky, senior vice president and the head of Middle East Programme at US Chamber of Commerce, Chris Roberti, chief of staff and senior vice president at US Chamber of Commerce, Steve Lutes, director, Middle East Programme at US Chamber of Commerce, Thomas Donohue Jr, founder and CEO of Adelphi Capital and Gareth Moore, vice president of Adelphi Capital.
