The Gov Games – the Dubai government’s high-energy team-building challenge – is going global by adding a new category for international city teams.

H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, who conceived the Gov Games initiative, announced a decision to further evolve the games into a global sporting event that will see the addition of the ‘International City Teams’ category to Gov Games 2020.

The evolved Gov Games 2020 format was initiated to engage global communities with the event’s founding message of ‘One Team, One Spirit’. The new category seeks to expand the impact of the event, in line with Dubai’s commitment to be a global example of teamwork, unity and tolerance.

The new category will see many teams representing global cities competing in Dubai for a dedicated AED1 million prize.

Open to men and women, the city-teams category will take place on the same Gov Games obstacles that host the highly-successful men’s and women’s competitions for government departments from the UAE and around the world. The one-day city-teams category will extend Gov Games 2020 to five days.

Aside from the city-teams category, Gov Games 2020 will continue hosting dedicated competitions for male and female teams representing the UAE’s government entities and federal departments. The UAE men’s and women’s categories will both retain separate prize funds of AED1.5 million, with AED1 million for winners, AED300,000 for second-place teams and AED200,000 for third-place teams.

The Gov Games 2019 winners – the F3 men’s team led by Sheikh Hamdan, and the F3 women’s team – both donated their AED1 million top prizes to charity after Gov Games 2019, which took place on Dubai’s Kite Beach earlier in April.

Gov Games is organised by the Executive Council of Dubai in partnership with Dubai Sports Council.