A clear line has been drawn in the desert sands of Saudi Arabia for Western critics who continue to question the morality of the state’s sporting acquisitions.
Having poured billions into golf, football, F1, boxing and now tennis, the Crown Prince says he is ‘not concerned’ with accusations of sportswashing. But, as Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova can attest, woe betide those who attack the state’s discrimination against women.
Anger is still simmering in Riyadh over the tennis couple’s recent op-ed in the Washington Post, which prompted the ambassador to the US to write a response said to be “as cruel as anything she has ever written.” Evert and Navratilova were told to ‘get the facts straight’ after writing that women in Saudi Arabia were essentially ‘the property of men’.
The stakes are high for Princess Reema Bandar Al Saud as senior figures within the state’s £492 billion Public Investment Fund try to convince US managers for both the WTA and ATP Tours.
Evert and Navratilova wrote out against the state potentially hosting this year’s WTA Finals, writing that Saudi Arabia is “criminalizing the LGBTQ community to the point of possible death sentences” and that the country’s “long-term reputation for the area of human rights and fundamental freedoms has deteriorated.” a matter of international importance for decades.”
But it was their criticism of “male tutelage” that led Princess Reema to challenge “outdated stereotypes and Western-centric views of our culture.”
“What is often called ‘guardianship’ no longer describes the status of Saudi women today,” she fired back. “Women do not need permission from a guardian to travel, work or be the head of their household. Today, Saudi women own more than 300,000 businesses and about 25 percent of small and medium-sized start-ups, which is about the same percentage as in the United States. Women in Saudi Arabia now enjoy equal pay, pointing the way to something that should be universal.”
To be fair, Evert and Navratilova even the locals have struggled to keep up with the whirlwind reforms. Telegraph Sport was previously in Riyadh to tour the state-of-the-art women’s sports facilities that have emerged in recent years. Residents sitting in restaurants where women would have been banned just six years ago acknowledge the “dizzying” speed of change. It was only half a decade ago that women were allowed to drive. Those who successfully protested for their right to permits subsequently remained in prison for some time. Yet Saudi Arabia now appears poised to make the biggest investment women’s sports has ever seen, with a $1 billion bid to merge the men’s and women’s tennis tours.
Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economics at SKEMA Business School, believes the Saudi willingness to refute Navratilova and Evert’s claims will have had one eye on “internal politics”. “What this government doesn’t want is for this restless Gen Z population, especially women, to become restless and revolt,” he says. “Now when you are in the center of Riyadh, it is a kind of manageable hedonism. That may sound bizarre to say, but what I think the Saudi Arabian government is doing is saying, ‘OK, we’re going to let you do things, women – go to gyms, go to football games and drive cars, but we’re going to decide what you can do, not you’. This patriarchy still exists in Saudi Arabia.”
Saudi Arabia’s big argument is that investments in sports have a demonstrable benefit for its population of 35 million people, 51 percent of whom are under 25 years old. Larger families are the norm and experts warn of pressure on the state to create enough jobs.
“As we know, Saudi Arabian economic growth has been weak for decades and to grow faster, especially in a post-oil world, the country must support everything it has at its disposal,” Chadwick added.
The Saudi government, meanwhile, says “major investments in tennis” are in line with the ambitions of Vision 2030, which “includes targets to boost women’s participation in sport”.
Across the country there are now 330,000 registered female athletes – 14,000 of whom are actively playing tennis – but the other key growth area in women’s sport this year will be football.
Specific figures are not given, but the state claims that “the number of female players, clubs and referees is growing nationally”.
“Since 2021, the number of professional female players in Saudi Arabia has increased by 195 percent, with the number of clubs increasing by 56 percent and women’s national teams increasing by 300 percent,” the Saudi Ministry of Sports added.
While the investments pale in comparison to the men’s big-spending Saudi Pro League, the women’s national team received a FIFA ranking last year and the country is hosting the West Asian Women’s Championship this month football federation. FIFA president Gianni Infantino was last year forced to abandon the prospect of accepting Visit Saudi as a sponsor at the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. However, his appearance at a national women’s match in December was warmly welcomed by a state that had publicly expressed its hope to host the 2035 Women’s World Cup, the year after likely hosting the 2034 men’s tournament.
“They have to make sure the pieces of the puzzle fit.”
However, both women’s football and tennis share their concerns more sharply than their male counterparts: how can these sports that are at the forefront of LGBT awareness join a country where, even as the country improves on women’s rights, sexual activity between people of the same sex continues? illegal?
There are already people in women’s football who share some of the concerns of Navratilova and Evert. When previously asked about Saudi critics, the country’s Sports Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki Al Faisal told Telegraph Sport: “I call on them to attend the various events we organize and see the impact they have on our people.”
Despite the Saudis pulling out Navratilova and Evert, Chadwick believes the state will proceed cautiously, “mindful of the risk” of possible “loss of face”. “They are trying to approach the situation differently and think more strategically in terms of getting the building blocks in place before they make a bid,” he says, suggesting that a Women’s World Cup in Riyadh appears less inevitable than the men’s version. . “They have to make sure the pieces of the puzzle fit.”
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