Name: MPW Spotlight: Reaching New Heights
Uploaded: 2025-05-21
Duration: 14 min 28 s

Saudi Arabia’s push to get more women and girls engaged in sports is working, with over 70,000 girls participating in school football league, in only it’s second year, and the opening of 500 women's sports centers. As part of Vision 2030, the country’s national sports strategy is clearing the way for women’s participation and developing a pipeline for female athletes, as part of the broader campaign to improve quality of life in the Kingdom. What’s next for Saudi's promising female athletes on their journey from amateur to elite, and for the women’s sports in the Kingdom and beyond?

MPW Spotlight: Reaching New Heights

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Please go to fortune.com. Now switching gears, let's talk about sports. Saudi women and girls are participating in sports in record numbers from joining youth leagues to coaching the next generation of promising athletes and competing in national and international competitions. This is all part of the government's national sports strategy. Joining us to discuss this historic initiative is Adwa al-Arifi, the Assistant Minister for sport affairs in the Ministry of Sport for Saudi Arabia. So she's going to be interviewed by Lama Al Hamai, a reporter for Arab News. Please welcome them to the stage. OK, welcome to our session Reaching New Heights. My name is Lehed Hemoy. I'm a reporter with Arab News and the founder and host of the Discussions podcast. We're in store for a treat in this session because we're going to be reaching new heights and discussing about the new heights through Vision 2030. Um, as a Saudi woman that's been living and working in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I've seen firsthand the advancements that have taken place in women in sports, um, from athletes, football players to schools and new programs coming about each and every day. And we're in store for a treat because I have the assistant of Minister for sports at the Ministry of Sports Abel Abife with me on stage to talk about the advancements. Um, I, I wanna ask you initially when Vision 2030 came about in 2016, um, we, we talked about the diversification of economy, but immediately I thought of sports. I thought of culture. I thought of tourism, um, sports wasn't the initial initial topic that came about. It was kind of the second topic. So I want to ask you, why is sports such an important pillar of Vision 2030 and looking at it now in 2025, what is the biggest advancements we've seen in the past couple of years? Can you hear me? Yes, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you all here today and to whoever is here for the first time in Saudi Arabia, I would like to welcome you and our beloved country, and I hope you're enjoying your time here in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Going to your question, um, why is sports important for Saudi? Because it's important for our people, for our nation. It makes us happier, healthier every day. Speaking of Vig 2030, Vision 2030 was launched back in 2016 by His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince Prince Mohammad bin Salman. This vision, vision 2030, has quality of life at the heart and core of that vision. As part of quality of life, we have sports, entertainment, tourism, and culture. So if we look at sports, we started working on our national sports strategy, and we say when we say national sports strategy, it's not about the strategy of the Ministry of sports, but it's the whole nation's strategy. So we focus on three main pillars in this strategy. The first pillar is mass participation. And we're proud to say that today more than 50% of Saudis are physically active, which that percentage before Vigen 2030, it was only 13%, so that number jumped from 13% to 58%. And we target how can we have more people into physical activity to get people more healthier, happier, and more active on their daily lives. The second main pillar is amateur to elite. So how can we identify talent from a young age? Boys and girls, how can we identify that talent? His Royal Highness, the Minister of Sport, Prince Abdel Aziz Binky, launched Mad Academy 4 years ago. Mad Academy is um across the whole kingdom of Saudi Arabia focusing on identifying uh talent from a young age in collaboration with Ministry of Education. The third pillar, which is elite. How can we as Saudis perform better in elite performance in international competitions? And we're proud to say that we've in the previous years female sports was new to Saudi, but we're proud that we had for the first time a female athlete qualifies to the Olympics, Dua Bota, who qualified in taekwondo and competed. To the last, she was very close to get a medal in Paris Olympics. So, um, so this is, this is our strategy. Those are our main pillars, and this is our focus, and whatever we do is for our people and our nation. And we've seen the success we've um, but there had to have been challenges along the way. I don't want to only touch upon the positive because it's a difficult journey through a transformation there might be resistance and there might be difficulties. So I wanna ask you, what were the hurdles involved in getting women in sports in Saudi Arabia? Um, to be honest, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, as part of Vision 2030, have removed all hurdles, and let me speak about my own journey. Sports is my passion since I was a young girl, and limited opportunities were back then, but that did not stop us. We played sports. I played soccer, football back then, had the first female team in Rio and a community league as well. Um, back then I've never imagined that the kingdom of Saudi Arabia will have a national team, a women's national team, or a league, an official league within within the kingdom. But today we went from not having national teams or leagues to today having 4 women national football teams. The first team. Under 20, under 17, and under 15, we have our Premier League, which has more than 10 clubs, female clubs playing in the Premier League, and it's the only league in the region that is broadcasted internationally and has global sponsorships as well. We have the first division, the 2nd division. We've launched the Schools league 3 years ago and for the first season we had more than 70,000 girls playing football in schools. So I think whatever we're doing is working. So other than that there are a lot of reforms that happened as part of Vi2030. So back in 2017, PE was introduced for girls' schools. 2018 girls and females were allowed to enter the stadiums. Um, 2018 women were allowed to drive in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and by law, all sporting federation needs to have a female seat in that federation to ensure the progress and and the transformation in women's sport in that sport. So these are all reforms that happened and personally we're living our dreams today and challenges were all removed. Exactly. They really were standing before me as an assistant minister, but for those of you that don't know, I think. Saudis, majority of Saudis know that Awa was one of the early trailblazers in football, by the way, in 2006, she was a legend in the very, very early on before Vision 2030 changes, she was the one leading the football sector and quite literally uplifting women around her way before Vision 2030 came to fruition. So please give her a round of applause. Honestly, we're setting for our legends. You're very humble. I know it's a team effort and the panel afterwards, my colleague Alia Rashid, who is leading women football in the Saudi Football Federation, she'll speak more about it, so I don't want to ruin. No, of course. I want to ask you, how do you change the cultural norms around sports participation in Saudi Arabia? Um, so whatever we're doing, we do, so our national sports strategy is catered for all. Uh, it's not only for men, it's not only for women, it's for, for everyone. And what we do is to open opportunity for all so we ensure that we have access for everyone, and that's the reason why we've went from 30 sporting federations before Virgin 2030 to today having more than 97 sporting federations to ensure that we have an opportunity for every single person living in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to try any kind of sport that they would wish for. So whatever we do, it's a personal choice. If you would like to enter the sports sector or be physically to be more physically active or to join any kind of sport, then the opportunity is there. So our role is not to change the cultural norms. We're our culture. We respect um uh um anyone's decision, but the opportunity is there to welcome everyone to be part of the transformation and to be part of the sports sector. I want to ask this question for anyone visiting the kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the first time or doesn't really know about sports in Saudi. When we think of Saudi Arabia, obviously we think of football. If you're thinking internationally, you can't help but think of football and some of the football legends we have here. But what are some of the other sports drawing attention in Saudi Arabia? So we're a football nation, so everyone watches football, plays football, so definitely football is is is one of the most popular sports in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, because sports is transforming within the kingdom. Um, so we find demand in all sports. So from paddle to e-sport to martial arts, Dunya Botale, for example, who is our first female that qualified to the Olympics, qualified in taekwondo. So demand is is moving. Very quick across all sports, so we see every day new athletes coming into the sports sector, and we have a whole new generation that is entering the sports sector across different, different sports. So there is no one popular sport. It's the demand is across all. And obviously we've seen Formula One, we've seen Formula E, we've seen the WTA being hosted right here in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Um, why is the Ministry of Sports driving for this transformation and investing so heavily in these international sports in Saudi Arabia? Um, so as I mentioned, whatever we do is for our people, for our nation, and let me give you an example of the WTA finals that we've hosted last year. The hosting of those events is to inspire our people. We're a young nation. 60% of the population are below the age of 30. Um, so when you see young girls attending the WTA and looking at, looking at those professional athletes, they get inspired to be that athlete one day, and we've worked on different programs across tennis, and during that WTA final we had more than 30,000 girls playing tennis because they are inspired from that that event. So that's an example. Another example is E1. Which is electric boat racing. We've hosted that and we're very proud of Medan, who you'll see in the next panel who won as a first, not only a first female but 1st 1st Arab that wins that race, and she's a Saudi female. So because of hosting the E1, we've realized that we have a talented athlete that became a champion. We're approaching the last few minutes of our session. I have one final question for you. What would success look like for you in your journey, in your career as assistant minister? How would you define success? So I think we we're living in a golden era today. So what we're witnessing today is success. When I was a young girl, I've never dreamt to work in sports, let alone looking at all the girls that are today involved in sport. Um, on behalf of all the girls that are passionate in sports, um, we are living our dreams, and this is the success we we we talk about. It is, I think we're seeing it firsthand. I have so many friends that are competitive athletes. This wouldn't have been possible to say in Saudi Arabia back in the day. And I think if it's OK to say this, we were talking backstage, we said that Saudi Arabia isn't working on catching up right now. We've already exceeded it. I think we're leading at the front line when it comes to women in sports. Yeah, definitely it's one of the fastest countries in the world that is growing in in in sports and Um, we might have been late, but we've already exceeded a lot of countries in terms of the progress that are happening, and we're one of the few countries in the world that applied equal pay for our athletes, which is the showcases that. So this showcases the progress that we're going through um and that it's it's real and um and we have equality across all sports and equality and progress in such a short amount of time when we think of Vision 2030, it wasn't that long ago that it was announced. Look at it now, the advancements are. Remarkable, and I've never seen anything like it anywhere around the world and for we're visiting Saudi Arabia, you might read about it on the news you might talk to friends, but being here in person firsthand speaking to Saudi women across this forum and listening to these panels, I hope that we can convey the true message of what's happening here in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. That's all the time that we have. A thank you so much for your time. Please give a round of applause. Thank you so much