Women, Football and Social Change in Saudi Arabia

Until 2018, women in Saudi Arabia did not have access to football stadiums, and before 2020 there was no official women’s teams. On the face of it there were no women in football until top-driven policy reform suddenly turned the situation upside down. But the story of women’s football unfolding away from these headlines is a completely different one. This book traces the emergence of women’s football in Saudi Arabia from the infancy of grassroots women’s team in 2005 to the launch of the first official, state-sponsored, competitions in 2020 – a period Saudi Arabia was going through rapid change. This book is thus both a history of women’s football in Saudi Arabia and a study of and social change, and the role of grassroot actors in times of transformation. The research in this work is based on fieldwork in Riyadh, interviews with players and pioneers of women’s football in Saudi Arabia, and analysis of social and traditional media and other available documents. In tracing the developments of women’s football in Saudi Arabia, Charlotte Lysa offers a ground-breaking social history of contemporary Saudi society and a narrative of change: change within football, change in women’s roles, and change in the structures of society.