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Saudi Arabia to launch women's football championship

2020-02-26T11:48:18.530Z


The kingdom announced the launch of the first women's football championship in the country, in March. A small step forward for the cause of women whose access to sport in the country remains difficult.


Launched in a series of reforms aimed at modernizing the country, Saudi Arabia will launch next March its first national football championship, the Women Football League (WFL) with women's teams. The League, open to players over 17, will take place the first season in three major cities of the kingdom: Riyadh, Jeddah and Damman. Several teams will first compete in preliminary rounds in each city. The regional champions will win their place for a final round, the WFL Champions Cup and will compete for the national title. The overall endowment of the League was established at 133,285 dollars for this first edition.

The event, which will begin in March, was officially launched in Riyadh on Monday by Prince Khaled bin Al-Waleed bin Talal, president of the Sports for All Federation of Saudi Arabia (SFA) surrounded by several players. “The development of the WFL was done because we understood that there was a need for football across the female community. This league is the first of several activations in women's sports and will serve as a model in terms of infrastructure and inclusion measures, "explained the manager at arabnews.com, adding that this championship was part of the sheet. road to modernizing the country on all floors, called Vision 2030.

The organization of sporting events is an integral part of this economic and societal project which also aims to restore the image of the kingdom throughout the world. In recent months, sport has served as a showcase for the monarchy scratched by repeated violations of human (and especially women's) rights, like the case of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, murdered in October 2018.

Many sporting events organized for several months on the territory

The country has recently organized the 2019 Italian Supercup, a Formula E round, wrestling meetings (with women forced to wear full-bodied suits anyway). This winter, bulimia has increased with the holding of the world boxing championship between Anthony Joshua and Andy Ruiz Jr in Diriyah on December 7. And what does it matter if the infrastructure is still lacking in the country. In less than a month and a half, the kingdom has erected a removable stadium with 15,000 seats. The precinct was used in stride for a tennis exhibition bringing together eight ATP stars baited by a loot of three million dollars. At the start of the year, Saudi Arabia achieved its greatest media success by hosting the Dakar and, a few days ago, a golf tournament, the Saudi International (January 30-February 2).

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Source: lefigaro

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