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29 March 2024

Saudi considers allowing women sport clubs: report

Published
By Reuters

Saudi Arabia has set up a ministerial committee to consider allowing women's sports clubs, al-Watan daily newspaper reported on Saturday, despite opposition to female exercise from religious conservatives.

Abdullah al-Zamil, a senior official from the General Presidency of Youth Welfare, the top Saudi sporting body, said the committee was being formed to end the "chaos" surrounding women's sports clubs which are effectively unregulated, Watan reported.

"The mission of the committee is focused on building a system for these clubs," the newspaper, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family, reported Zamil as saying.

In the kingdom, clerics have long argued against women playing sports or doing physical exercise, forcing female gyms to be designated as expensive "health centres".

The most likely woman candidate to compete under the Saudi flag, equestrian Dalma Malhas, represented the kingdom at the junior Olympics in Singapore in 2010, but without official support or recognition.

King Abdullah last year said they could vote in municipal elections, the country's only public polls.

Saudi Arabia's only female deputy minister, Noura al-Fayez, has written to HRW saying there is a plan to introduce physical education at girls' state schools.