A $60,000 share of a $100,000 prize pool now sits with an Abu Dhabi-backed esports organisation. Red Dunes claimed the Street Fighter League title for the Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia region on Saturday, taking a 70-30 grand final win over GTW in the Street Fighter 6 competition at the MCM Comic Con London event, held at the Excel centre. The victory also carried a commercial prize: a place at the Street Fighter League World Championship in Tokyo next March.
The result matters beyond the money. It is the team’s first championship since it began competing under the Red Dunes name, a milestone that Abu Dhabi-raised player Adel Anouche, known in competition as Big Bird, framed in terms of organisational credibility. “This win means a lot to me because it’s our first win with our organisation, Red Dunes esports, and SFL is known to be a tournament to crown the best team!” he tells The National. “It’s definitely ranked high for me. Truly best way to showcase our Abu Dhabi, UAE home team.”
The tournament’s structure gives the result its market significance. Unlike traditional fighting game events, Street Fighter League places competitors in four-player teams whose individual victories feed an overall score, effectively turning player talent into a measurable, sellable team asset. This year’s EMEAA edition assembled 24 players across six teams spanning four regions. Red Dunes entered the playoffs as the second seed, having finished the regular season behind GTW, the very opponent it later dismantled in the final.
The roster blends established competitive value with rising pedigree. Alongside Anouche, it features Jordanian Amjad Al Shalabi, known as AngryBird; Norwegian veteran Arman Hanjani, competing as Phenom, who has spent more than a decade on the international circuit and finished third at Capcom Cup in 2019; and Swede Joel Sundell, or Juicy Joe, a semi-finalist at Capcom Cup 11 last year who beat Al Shalabi en route.
Red Dunes’ path to the title showed both margin and momentum. A 60-20 semi-final win over YESports preceded the grand final, where the team recovered from an early deficit. Anouche anchored the comeback with two key victories using C Viper, Sundell added a win against Bravery, and Al Shalabi closed out the championship by defeating Zhen with Akuma. Expectations had been modest at the outset, Anouche concedes. “I even thought we had a low chance of winning after seeing all the teams, but I guess I was wrong and underestimated our team,” he says.
Meanwhile, for the two Abu Dhabi-raised players at the core of the roster, the title extends an already valuable competitive brand. Anouche and Al Shalabi, childhood friends known collectively as The Birds, have built international profiles: Al Shalabi won the Street Fighter 6 championship at Evo in Las Vegas in 2023, while Algerian-born Anouche has twice finished runner-up at the same prestigious event. Their commercial draw was visible at Tokyo Game Show last month, where crowds of Japanese fans turned out for a meet-and-greet.
Anouche ties the run of results to the underlying economics of the region’s fighting game scene, which grew partly out of its arcade culture. “Even though the quantity is not there, the quality is definitely present in our players,” he says. “With enough dedication and discipline, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more champions coming out of Middle East.”
Saturday’s win marks the roster’s third consecutive regional Street Fighter League title, and attention now shifts to the world championship at Tokyo’s Ryogoku Kokugikan from March 10 to 14, where the team hopes to convert two previous unsuccessful attempts into a return. “Our next goal is to win SFL world finals. We were able to get a shot at it twice but never made it happen, hopefully 3rd time is the charm now,” Al Shalabi says. The team has adopted the slogan “Third Impact” for the campaign. Further coverage of the tournament is available at https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture/2026/10/26/abu-dhabi-esports-team-red-dunes-takes-top-prize-in-prestigious-street-fighter-tournament/