Today's Edition
KUUMAR SHYAM (ABU DHABI)
Abu Dhabi is set to write a new chapter in the sporting journey of the Wildcats Sports Academy (WSA) as the local basketball club prepares to make history on the international stage.
The academy, Abu Dhabi’s biggest, will become the first basketball club from the UAE capital to compete in the prestigious NextGen EuroLeague Pre-Qualifier, taking place in Vienna, Austria, from November 27 to 29.
Organised by EuroLeague Basketball, the Under-18 competition serves as a premier global development showcase for emerging talent, offering young prospects a direct pathway toward professional careers. A total of 40 U18 teams across 15 countries will participate in the tournament this season.
The Vienna leg, one of two new pre-qualifying events added to expand access to the main tournament circuit, will see Wildcats Abu Dhabi compete alongside European stalwarts such as France's Cholet Basket, Great Britain's London Lions, Lithuania's Neptunas Klaipeda, Italy's Orange1 Bassano, Germany's Veolia Towers Hamburg, among others.
Adding further historical weight to their participation, the team will feature 188cm guard Hamdan Al Nuaimi, who is set to become the first Emirati national to compete at the EuroLeague level.
"We are extremely proud of this achievement and the opportunity to showcase our players on one of the biggest basketball stages in the world," said Ljubomir Dokic, Founder and Managing Director of Wildcats Sports Academy. "Receiving an invitation to participate in adidas NextGen EuroLeague is a direct result of the hard work and dedication of our coaches, staff, players and parents."
While the landmark entry into European basketball marks a monumental milestone for the capital, the story of Wildcats Sports Academy is fundamentally one of grassroots passion, rapid evolution, and self-funded determination.
The foundation of the club dates back to November 2015, when Dokic, affectionately known as "LJ", arrived in Abu Dhabi from Serbia on a 30-day trip to see a former teammate working locally as a strength and conditioning coach.
"I fell in love with the city," Dokic recalled. "I saw a big opportunity for the sport of basketball because there were not many things around." He has since strengthened the basketball scene in the city considerably.
After local parents encouraged him to lead a programme, Dokic began running a modest community basketball session for around 40 children in Al Reef Village. By late 2017, he launched Wildcats Sports Academy.
"It was not just any paid after-school activity; it is more serious where we focus on the fundamentals and discipline a lot," Jokic explained. "This attracted a lot of players to join."
What began with roughly 100 players quickly expanded to nearly 400. Today, Wildcats has grown into Abu Dhabi’s largest sports academy, catering to more than 750 boys and girls aged 8 to 18 across basketball, volleyball and football programmes, supported by 27 full-time staff members.
A decisive turning point in the academy's competitive rise came when Dokic decided to self-fund six high-calibre junior Serbian players to join the academy's elite training ecosystem and elevate the standard.
"Those six Serbian players were completely funded by us. We didn't have any sponsors," Dokic revealed. "We are literally using funds from all programmes even for this trip [to Vienna] and other avenues of exposure and experience for the players. It's all out of passion for the sport."
That drive had paid off on the court, with Wildcats sweeping all five youth competitions in Dubai in a single season. Looking ahead, Dokic envisions their historic EuroLeague debut in Austria as merely the first step in a broader long-term legacy for Abu Dhabi.
"My main goal for this, to give back to Abu Dhabi for what I got from Abu Dhabi, is that in the next five to 10 years, we actually build a EuroLeague player of a local that actually is going to go and play in one of the European clubs," Dokic added.
