Clarence Seedorf and Khabib Nurmagomedov, have announced the launch of Seedorf Khabib Performance Club, combining the worlds of football and mixed martial arts (MMA).

Speaking on the collaboration Seedorf said, “We have the same mission in life. We want to give something back to the young generations. This is not a Dubai project; this is a global project,”

“We are going to bring in the knowledge, the coaches and methodology, monitoring and supporting from a marketing point of view to support the growth of each venue and each partnership.”

“I know [Khabib] knows exactly the things that he can bring from an MMA perspective. I think I know what I can bring from a football perspective. And that we’ll be doing and analysing in each different part of the world.”

The retired former lightweight champion said: “For sure, if we open here in Dubai we need a performance club in Abu Dhabi. We’re going to work on this in future. We’re going to have Abu Dhabi and Dubai, two performance clubs… minimum.”

Seedorf, the only footballer to win the Uefa Champions League with three different clubs – Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan and Khabib both touched on their desire to take the project to Africa.

The latter said: “[Clarence] became a success in his sports, I did in mine. We know how to become champions. Right now, our goal is to create champions. To create champions, you need a system; me and Clarence are going to create that system.”

Founded by the unlikely duo SK Sports Holding, headquartered in Dubai, will establish local and regional partnerships to operate the Performance Clubs around the world based on a licensing or joint ventures model, with plans to open 10 locations in the next 5 years.