Abdullah Hammad is the president of Mahd Academy, the Saudi national sports academy in Riyadh.
Hammad’s role at the academy is to discover and identify talents throughout the Kingdom via schools, public tryouts, competitions, and through teacher and recommendations.
He has experience in several sports, especially in football, at leading and developing organizations, with his ability to diversify and create goals making him a leading figure in the Saudi sports sector.
Hammad is also a general director of the Leaders Development Institute, which prepares future leaders in the sports field for over 90 federations through educational courses.
He is also a board member for the Saudi Special Olympics, a global movement for inclusion using sport, health, education and leadership programs to empower and inspire.
In September 2019, he represented the Kingdom as a member of the Asian Football Confederation Marketing Committee.
In 2018, he became a board member of Al-Ahli Saudi FC, a position assigned by the Ministry of Sports, where he shared his experience in Europe to improve the club’s youth teams and academy development, which led to producing many future national team players.
Prior to his positions at the Leaders Development Institute and Mahd Academy, he worked at Aspire Academy in Qatar from 2013-17 as a chief scout at the Football Skills & Development Centre.
Hammad received his master’s degree in sports management in 2012 from the Johan Cruyff Institute in Amsterdam, Holland. While receiving his degree, he was a part-time scouting specialist for AFC Ajax from 2012-13.
In 2010, he received his high diploma in Denmark in sports coaching from Gymnastics and Sports Academy Viborg.
From 2010-11, he was an assistant football coach and youth coach at Aarhus Gymnastikforening in Denmark, and at VSK Aarhus in 2009.
He received his bachelor’s degree in management, majoring in coaching, from SKEMA Business School in Nice, France.
He earned his C, B, and A coaching license, which took ten years to obtain, from the European football association UEFA, considered the best level of license a coach can achieve worldwide.
