The New Year will mark a new beginning for UAE cricket with the sport set to enter a professional era.

The Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) on Monday announced that they will hand out central contracts to players and there will also be full-time professional selectors. Details of the contracts were not revealed but the players will come under ECB's visas. The ECB said that it would come into effect by January.

"What we will be moving to is central contracts for players. We will also have full-time professional selectors" David East CEO of the ECB said on Monday.

"It is a really exciting time and we are in a rebuilding stage there is no question. With the team getting old together we need to change the way we go about things. And one of the key things that we are going to do is moving to formal central contracts for the players. I think that was one of things that we noticed particularly in Scotland and Ireland was that the UAE was the only team in that competition that didn't have full-time professional players. We have been lucky to have some really talented individuals but the opposition is moving far ahead of us and we are playing catch-up. So we have to adapt and channel our energies into supporting full-time cricketers. That really is the headline in the change of direction that we are doing" elaborated East.

"After the T20 Qualifiers and with three key retirements we obviously felt that the team needed some refreshing. So what we have done we have changed the way we are going to be selecting the team which is an important thing to consider. So for the first time we will have professional selectors selectors identified as being former international cricketers who have a good insight into the way cricket is run here in the UAE in the Associate world and the international stage as well. And they will be basically asked to liaison closely with our local councils watch a lot of cricket here in the UAE and will come under a new chairman of selectors who will select the national teams going forward.

"I can't right now go into the details of who those individuals would be because it is still a work in progress. But I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks we should be in a position to announce the selectors and who will be heading the panel. But it is going to condense down from what was a fairly sizeable group to a more focussed and dedicated number of individuals who are going to entirely concentrated on seeing cricket and understanding what's going on" he added.

The announcements long overdue marks the evolution from being an amateur side to being a professional outfit like other teams in international cricket. And the UAE will become one of the few Associate teams to make that transition.

"It does give us the opportunity to retain talent as well. We suffered after the Under -19 World Cup as a whole bunch of talented young cricketers left us because of the challengers we face here as we couldn't provide them full-time education" East said. And in an effort to make Emiratis take up the sport the ECB has initiated a pilot programme involving five schools in Al Ain. The programme has so far drawn 300 students.

UAE coach Aaqib Javed was elated by these decisions.

"It excites me that we will finally have professional players and professional selectors. Over the three-and-a-half years that I have been here I realised how tough it has been. We survived in the World Cup on two or three very very good players. But with the amount of cricket that we play these days it is impossible to carry on like a part-time team" said Aaqib.

"So this is the best way for UAE cricket to move forward. There are a number of ways you can provide the right environment for the players like professional training arrange tours. You know I've been really struggling to arrange players for these games because it is impossible you can take leave everyday from your office. So full-time players and a structure around them will be really helpful for UAE cricket" he added.

Will Kitchen General Manager ICC Academy and UAE Cricket High Performance Manager said they had looked at other Associate countries and felt that it was time to make the move.

"Prior to the World Cup and at the end of the World Cup we were talking about all of our competitors like Ireland Scotland Hong Kong Netherlands and Afghanistan had professional setups. Their development performance and their development system are full-time professional system with full-time players and full-time staff. So we came up with this project" said Kitchen.