Supriya Ghosh (Editor)

Women's football in Saudi Arabia

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Country
  
Saudi Arabia

National team
  
Women's national team

Governing body
  
Saudi Arabian Football Federation

Women's football in Saudi Arabia is mostly played indoors by the affluent. This is mainly due to the heavy legal restrictions by the government.

In 2012 the government allowed women to attend games in segregated parts of the stadium.

Background and development

The national federation was created in 1956 and became a FIFA affiliate in 1956. However women's football is not included in the country's FIFA coordinated Goals! project. By 2011, inside the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, there has been an effort to create women's football programs at universities. Input had been sought on how to do this from other national federations including ones from the United States, Germany, Brazil and the United Kingdom. On the men's side of the game, the national federation has funded efforts to improve the quality of the Saudi Arabia men's national football team.

Founded in 2006, King's United women football club was the first women's football club in the country. In 2009, they trained in Jeddah. The team was initially sponsored by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal but facing scrutiny in the face of intense media coverage, he withdrew his support in 2009. In 2012, the team trained three times a week outside the sight of men, with players wearing traditional football kit of short sleeved shirts and shorts. The team is coached by Reema Abdullah who also is the team's striker. It has 35 players who range in age from 13 to 35. Other women's teams have been created in the country in cities like Riyadh and Dammam and a tournament was held in 2008, with seven teams competing and the event being won by King's United. The first match between two female teams in the country occurred in January 2008 when the Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University team beat Al-Yamamah College in a match played at Dammam's 35,000-spectator capacity Prince Mohamed bin Fahd Stadium in a shootout victory before an all-women audience. The player of the match was Al-Yamamah College's goalkeeper. In March 2009, a women's charity football match was held between a team called "University" and a team called "Barcelona" that was attended by 400 female fans and no men. The game was won 2–1 by University and earned SR81,000 ($21,598) to go towards people with disabilities in the eastern part of the kingdom.

As of 2006, no data were available for the number of women's football players in the country. In 2006, there was international uproar when Saudi authorities sought to prevent women from attending a game between the Saudi Arabia national football team and the Sweden national football team. In 2008, the situation for women's football in the Middle East was said by author Gary Brecher to be up there in popularity of freedom and democracy in the region. An all-women's school sporting competition was held at Effat University in 2010. The tournament was investigated by Saudi authorities because, according to Ahmed al-Zahrani, director of the Girls Education Department in Jeddah, the country does not have "any regulations that say that it's okay for girl schools to hold sports classes or training". In 2011, women's football was seen as a way to combat a growing problem of obesity in the country.

References

Women's football in Saudi Arabia Wikipedia