VISAKHAPATNAM, India — Sheikh Suhail bin Butti Al Maktoum, Assistant Undersecretary at the UAE Ministry of Sports, led his country’s delegation at the 2026 BRICS Sports Ministers’ Meeting here, where member states agreed in principle to establish a formal working group on sports technology and adopted a joint statement committing to sustained multilateral cooperation.
The ministerial gathering’s most concrete institutional outcome was the proposed BRICS Sports Technology Working Group. Designed to facilitate knowledge sharing, joint research and coordinated innovation across member states, the body would give BRICS nations a standing mechanism for technical collaboration, moving cooperation beyond periodic ministerial meetings into a structured, ongoing framework.
The joint statement adopted at the meeting’s conclusion identified knowledge exchange, capacity building and technical collaboration as priority areas. That formal commitment sets expectations for how member states are to coordinate on sports-related policy going forward, and creates a baseline against which future compliance can be measured.
Sheikh Suhail’s delegation used the platform to outline the UAE’s strategic positioning within the evolving global sports landscape. Officials pointed to the World Sports Summit in Dubai and the Games of the Future event in Abu Dhabi as evidence of the country’s proactive role in shaping sector development. The framing was deliberate: the UAE presenting itself not merely as a participant in multilateral governance, but as a convener with institutional weight.
Discussions in plenary covered a broad range of areas, including athlete development, traditional sports and best-practice exchange on innovation. The scope signals that BRICS governments increasingly view sports governance as a domain requiring coordinated policy, not just bilateral goodwill.
Meanwhile, Sheikh Suhail conducted bilateral discussions with officials from India, Russia and other participating countries. Those side meetings focused on sports technology, innovation and talent development, allowing for more targeted negotiations outside the broader multilateral framework. Bilateral formats often produce the specific partnership commitments that joint statements only gesture toward.
Participants also expressed institutional backing for the BRICS Traditional and Indigenous Sports Demonstration Games, scheduled for Ahmedabad in October. That endorsement places a formal expectation on member states to support the event, folding cultural preservation into the same governance architecture as technology and competitive sport.
The meeting’s structure, formal working groups, a binding joint statement, bilateral negotiations and event endorsements, reflects how sports policy has migrated into the machinery of multilateral governance. The open question is whether the proposed Sports Technology Working Group moves from agreed principle to operational body, and which member states take the lead in defining its mandate and accountability structures.