21 September 2016 - Doha, Qatar:

One of Europe's largest football clubs - England's Tottenham Hotspur F.C. - has today signed a medical partnership agreement with Aspetar, the sports medicine and orthopaedic hospital in Qatar, giving the club priority access to the hospital's advanced sports medicine services and facilities.

A senior delegation from Aspetar travelled to London earlier this week to finalise the agreement before signing it officially at Tottenham Hotspur's state-of-the-art Training Centre.

The agreement seeks to build on the existing informal relationship between the club and Aspetar, and covers medical screening, research, athlete rehabilitation and orthopaedic surgery at the FIFA-accredited Medical Centre of Excellence.

The new agreement will also extend to collaboration on athlete performance assessments, nutrition, and podiatric health as per best practice international standards.


Speaking about the visit to the Club's Training Centre to sign the partnership, Aspetar's Chief Operations Officer Ibrahim Al-Darwish said: "We are proud to be partnering with England's Tottenham Hotspur F.C in providing our medical services and expertise to one of the top clubs in the English Premier League. This partnership demonstrates once again our ability to provide world-class medical care to elite athletes, and reflects the international confidence of the world's top clubs and teams in our services and proficiency".

Al-Darwish added: "The partnership is one of the latest examples of our dedication to fulfilling our mission of assisting athletes to achieve their maximum performance and full potential, and our vision to be a global leader in sports medicine and exercise science by 2020".

Tottenham Hotspur Head of Medical & Sports Science Dr Shabaaz Mughal said: "We are always examining ways we can enhance our players' health and performance in order to ensure they realise their full potential on the pitch and this partnership can only help us further in achieving this.  Aspetar is one of the world's best high level performance centres and offers us another outlet to share knowledge and information with some of the leading researchers and practitioners around."

The agreement follows the visit by Tottenham's Argentinian Manager, Mauricio Pochettino and Dr Mughal to Aspetar last May where they were part of an official delegation from the club on a tour of the hospital where they learnt more about facilities, services and its pioneering sports medicine experts.

During his visit, Pochettino said: "I have heard a lot about Aspetar and have always wanted to visit. What I've seen has been truly amazing. There are many things here that we can learn from and we look forward to enhancing our cooperation with the hospital."

With this agreement, Tottenham, who are competing in this season's UEFA Champions League, joins a long list of top sports clubs that benefit from Aspetar's facilities, services and expertise, such as Ligue 1's Paris Saint-Germain.

The agreement with Tottenham Hotspur continues to reinforce Aspetar's reputation as a sports medicine pioneer amongst the world's leading sports clubs, highlighting its ability to enhance team performance and help athletes reach their full potential. 

Aspetar is considered one of the world's leading sports and orthopaedic medicine hospitals and is the first of its kind in the Middle East. The hospital was officially accredited in 2009 as a FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence.

-Ends-

About Aspetar:
ASPETAR is a world leading specialised orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital, and the first of its kind in the Middle East. Since 2007, with a world expert team, the hospital has provided top-level comprehensive medical treatment to all athletes in a state-of-the-art facility that sets new standards internationally.

In 2009, Aspetar was accredited as a "FIFA Medical Centre of Excellence" by F-MARC. In 2013, Aspetar was adopted as a reference collaborator centre by the Gulf Countries Council (GCC) Health Ministers Council and "IOC Research Centre for Prevention of Injury and Protection of Athlete Health" in 2014.
In 2015, Aspetar has been recognised as the "IHF Reference Centre for Athlete and Referee Health". In the same year, the hospital also achieved the obtained on December 15 the Accreditation Canada International (ACI) "Platinum Level".

ASPETAR is a member-organisation of Aspire Zone Foundation, Qatar's innovative sports and healthy lifestyle destination.

www.aspetar.com
Twitter: @Aspetar
Facebook.com/Aspetar

About Tottenham Hotspur:
Tottenham Hotspur, also known as Spurs, is a Premier League football club founded in 1882, which has a tradition of playing an entertaining and attacking style of football and will compete in this season's Champions League after achieving a seventh successive top-six finish in the English top-flight.  The Club features in the top 15 of the Deloitte Football Money League, which ranks football clubs around the world by revenue generated from football operations.
Tottenham Hotspur also has:
- A new world-class stadium set to open in 2018 that will be one of the finest around for spectators, visitors and the wider community, delivering a major new landmark for Tottenham and London.  This will include a minimum of two NFL fixtures each year during a 10-year partnership.
- A global following in excess of 180 million, with strong supporter bases across the world
- Commercial partnerships with globally-recognised brands including AIA Group Limited (AIA) - one of the world's leading providers of insurance services and US sportswear giants Under Armour
- A newly-built state-of-the-art training centre
- An award winning Foundation that has created over two million opportunities to help enhance the lives of people in its local community through education, employment, health and social inclusion programmes.

For more information: please contact Mr Lyes Fodil:
Media Relations Specialist
+97455543390
Office: +974 444132112
Lyes.fodil@aspetar.com

© Press Release 2016