Grégory Dufrennes appointed Head Coach of Palm City
The Frenchman arrives with something rarer than a CV: two decades inside Emirati football, first as a player and then as a coach.
Dufrennes spent the bulk of his playing career in the UAE, with Dubai Club and Ittihad Kalba, across more than a decade in the country. He knows the grounds, the calendar, the demands of a season here, and the particular challenge of building a squad that mixes overseas professionals with Emirati talent. Few coaches available to a club at this level know the market from the inside the way he does.
His move into management came with Al Wahda, where he took charge in 2021 and produced the strongest points return of his coaching career to date. He returned to the UAE Pro League with Al Jazira in 2024, before a spell in Saudi Arabia with Al Batin.
He inherits a squad in the strongest shape of the club's short history. Alejandro Pozuelo has extended for a second season, and Kurt Zouma, William Carvalho, Moussa Marega and Abdoulay Diaby have all been registered ahead of the campaign. Mansour Al Menhali has been called into the UAE Olympic national team.
The brief is clear. Palm City won the domestic double in 2026 and is pursuing promotion to the ADNOC Pro League.
Dufrennes begins work with the squad immediately.
