Today (Friday), the women's national team officially entered the FIFA classification, less than two years after its establishment, after achieving distinguished results and rapid growth during the last period.
Since its establishment in 2021, the women's national team has played 9 matches, and was crowned the title of the first women's friendly tournament hosted by Saudi Arabia at the beginning of this year, which helped it reserve a seat for it in the international classification, so that it could participate in the tournaments approved by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation.
For his part, the President of the Saudi Football Association, a member of the FIFA Council, Yasser bin Hassan Al-Mishal, said that what the national team players achieved in just a year and a half is a great achievement, pointing out that this historic moment is the culmination of investments and the great interest of the wise leadership in the sports sector in general. And football in particular in recent years, and the Minister of Sports followed up on everything related to football.
Lamia bint Ibrahim bin Bahian, a member of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Federation and General Supervisor of Women's Football Management, said that the women's national team continues to make history by entering the FIFA classification in a short period and at a distinguished level. She also praised the wonderful work done by the technical and administrative staff of the team and stressed the importance of Redoubling efforts in the coming period in order to achieve more achievements.
For his part, the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) praised the achievement of the Saudi women's team, and said: When Monica Stab assumed her duties as coach of the Saudi women's team in 2021, with the aim of setting the features of a team and developing its level, she stated that she could only provide the catalyst for the team and the players would then have to To kindle the fire themselves and achieve the goal.
Since then the flame has burned steadily, as the level of women's football continues to take leaps and bounds. Staub was appointed as technical director, and Finn Rosa replaced her with Abe Spala as coach of the national team.
FIFA said on its website: Saudi Arabia is a striking example of football's ability to inspire in order to achieve widespread change. For example, the Kingdom launched the first women's league for the first and second divisions, which includes 25 teams (the Premier League and the First League), and it built centers to train girls between 6 and 17 years old, and created the women's national team under 17 years old.
And he continued: There are more than 1,000 coaches compared to 119 in 2021, who have different licenses, and there are also 50,000 girls in the school leagues, and the number of referees increased by 66%, and the number of clubs by 56% in a short period.
“FIFA” stated the statement of the President of the Saudi Football Association, Yasser Hassan Al-Mishal, saying: “Since 2019, we have succeeded in establishing a national team, a major league, a first degree, and a school league, with the registration of 50,000 girls, and in recent weeks we have presented a national team for under 17 years.” . In just two years we have doubled the number of registered players, clubs, referees and staff and seen an 800% growth in the number of coaches. We are proud of these statistics which show what can be achieved for what you love about this game.”
He added, “We are fully committed to providing equal opportunities for boys and girls in sports and beyond. For example, our national teams receive an equal daily allowance while representing their country, regardless of gender, share the same training pitches, sleep in the same quality of accommodation, and have access to the same equipment and resources. On behalf of everyone in Saudi football, I would like to thank every player, member of the coaching staff, fan, mother, father, sister and brother for their support. This is just the beginning of something very special.”
It is noteworthy that the Saudi women's team entered the FIFA rankings to rank 171.
Okaz (Jeddah)
