Ali Abou El Nasr

BSc Sport and Management, 2013

You're co-founder of Find Me Football and also of Blind Football Egypt – what’s your inspiration? 

I loved football ever since I was a kid and even tried to make it as a professional but when that didn't work and I tore my ACL multiple times it made me think about the other side of the sport. I got my coaching badges while at Abertay and tried coaching but that didn't work well in Egypt because of the football ecosystem here. 

A friend of mine volunteered at a school for the visually impaired in Cairo and he asked me if I could coach them as there was only goal-ball available at the time as a sport for the visually impaired. We started coaching them weekly and then turned it into a nationwide initiative. 

What’s Find Me Football all about? 

Find Me Football is a mobile application where people can meet up with others to get a game when they don't have enough players. So users can create a game that others can join and go have a game of football where they can rate and challenge each other. 

That's it in a nutshell really. We are hoping to go to take it outside of Egypt in the next few months so if any Sports and Management, Business or App development students want to volunteer to help us start it in Scotland, I would be more than happy to have other Abertay students involved! 

What was it like working alongside Alex McLeish at Zamalek? 

I would say that was one of the best experiences in my career so far. 

It was quite a shock for me actually and happened very randomly. No one could understand Alex's accent so I was brought in to work as his translator. When he found out that I had coaching badges and experience with football statistics he asked me to work with him full time throughout his stay. I learned a lot from him and still seek his advice to this day. He made me fall in love with coaching all over again. 

How did your Abertay degree help prepare you for what you now do?

I think the thing that helped me most were the practical sessions and my time coaching through Active Schools. All the research we were asked to do and the weekly activities also helped open my eyes to the other sides of sport. The versatility of the courses and experience of the tutors also helped to shape my way of looking at things.

Did anyone at Abertay have a lasting impact on you?

Pat Sadakat had a very big impact on me. She was my Management tutor and always tried to make things relevant to sport rather than just management. Also I would say Dr Dan Parnell who was very hands on and offered me my first internship with Streetcage UK as a Social Media Manager in my third year. 

It didn’t last very long but really helped me out when dealing the social media for Blind Football Egypt and Find Me Football.

What advice do you have for our current students?

Try as many new things as you can. I came to Abertay thinking I would be a coach or backroom staff at a club, but now I am a fully-fledged agent, provide statistical analysis for the Egyptian national team, I'm a football coach to the blind and I also operate a football app. Networking is also a huge deal in my opinion so do as much of it as possible while you are at university, be it through internships, societies, sports teams or even just classes.

What are your future aspirations?

I hope to take Find Me Football outside of Egypt and have it be operational in as many places as possible and possibly have a player as good as Mo Salah on my roster of players. Currently I have a few players in Europe who are young so I hope they all make it big and I can help other Egyptians find their passion for sports and see that there is more to it than just playing.