Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi will be the first Middle East host of a major international soccer event when it holds soccer's World Club Cup in December, and organisers say it may help it lead to a successful bid for the sport's World Cup.

The World Cup is the most watched sports event. It's been staged in Asia, Europe, South and North America, and will be hosted in Africa for the first time when the competition kicks off in South Africa. Next year's event will bring in $3.4 billion (Dh12.5 billion) in commercial fees, making it attractive to hosts.

Qatar is bidding for the 2022 version, and Mohammad Khalfan Al Rumaithi, president of the UAE Football Association, said in an interview that it's time for the event to visit the Middle East. "We would like to have a balance between our part of the world and Europe and the rest of the world," Al Rumaithi said. "People are the same in their passion for sport."

He declined to say how much is being spent to bring European champions Barcelona and other participants to the Gulf for Fifa's World Club Cup. Tickets have already gone on sale for the event, which starts on December 9.

Abu Dhabi has nine per cent of the world's proven oil reserves, and is planning to spend billions of dollars to diversify its economy by 2030. It will host its first Formula One Grand Prix on November 1 and is also building new cultural and academic centres like the Guggenheim and Louvre museums and a campus for New York University.

"Many of these major sporting projects in Abu Dhabi - whether it's Formula One, or soccer, or even buying a soccer club in the English Premier League - to my mind aren't really intended to ever turn a profit," said Christopher Davidson, a professor at Durham University in northeast England and author of Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond. "They are in support of the grand long-term diversification strategy."

Hosting such events is part of the emirate's "soft diplomacy" to attract businesses and tourism to the region, Davidson said.

Abu Dhabi will host the next two versions of the World Club Cup before it returns to Japan. Al Rumaithi said bringing talent like Barcelona's Lionel Messi to Abu Dhabi may provide a boost to the fortunes of the UAE's national team. It hasn't qualified for a World Cup since 1990.

"There are differences in the level of [soccer] for many reasons," he said. "Maybe one of the reasons is that this part of the world doesn't host big tournaments. So, everybody can learn from referees, players, coaches, media. Events like this will close the gap and make that balance."