When passion leads to one's profession, brands like ‘duplays.com’ are born. Davinder Rao left a ten year career in pharmacology inspired by his belief in the saying, ‘do what you love and the money will follow’.

When Davinder came to Dubai from Canada in September 2007, he missed being able to enjoy his passion for sports. He looked around for organized sports in the city and realized that there was a vacuum. Davinder says, “I wanted to play frisbee and invited friends to play the game at Metropolitan Hotel and we all pitched in to pay for the space. We started playing every Tuesday and by the end of the month, we were fifty people strong.”

Eventually, Davinder decided to organize various kinds of sports at a professional level. The entire concept was based on providing an alternative channel for people to come together and socialize as well as helping them to keep fit.


In January, he approached Dulsco to hire the sports facility at Dulsco Village - The Events Arena. Since then, Duplays has organized soccer matches in the venue. Davinder says, “in order to satisfy our requirements for top-level sports facilities, we approached Dulsco for use of the complex. With impeccably maintained facilities and staff on-hand to help our management team with any issues that might arise, we were ensured of great customer service and security to make our playing experience enjoyable”. At present they have 100 soccer teams who use the pitches at Dulsco regularly. The facility is so big that it can accommodate multiple matches at the same time. Davinder started his website in December 2007 with membership of 200, and it now stands at 5000. Of these members, 70% are men and the rest are women, with the percentage of women members increasing every month.

Davinder sounded excited about his initiatives in Abu Dhabi, saying, “It was all for fun till November 2008 but now I want to develop this as a concept in this country. I want to make it a community-based games option so that sports becomes a way of life for people”.