January 31 – Spanish star player Aitana Bonmati has said that playing in Saudi Arabia would make her “uncomfortable” because of gender inequality.
With the Spanish men’s Super Cup staged in Saudi Arabia, Bonmati was quizzed about playing in the Arab Kingdom and said: “Saudi Arabia is a country that has a long way to go today in terms of equality between men and women. Here too, and all over the world too, but focusing on Saudi Arabia, I think that if things don’t improve, I wouldn’t feel comfortable going to play there.”
Last December, Saudi Arabia were awarded the 2034 World Cup by FIFA following a bid process that cast a long shadow over Gianni Infantino’s claims that the world governing body is a reformed and clean organisation.
It was the culmination of Saudi Arabia’s growing power and influence in the game. The Arab Kingdom has also been active in the women’s game, building a national women’s team and establishing a nationwide domestic women’s league. Saudi Arabia also submitted a bid to stage the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup but withdrew.
Saudi Arabia has a long record of repressing women’s rights. In its 2025 World Report, Human Rights Watch wrote: “Saudi Arabia does not have an anti-discrimination law. Saudi Arabia’s first codified law on personal status formally enshrines male guardianship over women and includes provisions that facilitate domestic violence and sexual abuse in marriage. The government did not consult Saudi women’s rights activists despite their campaigns for a Personal Status Law that would end discrimination against women. Instead, Saudi women’s rights activists have faced arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and travel bans.”
Saudi Arabia sports minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, said in a recent interview when asked about women’s rights in the Kingdom, said: “I think women today in Saudi Arabia have the most rights that they’ve ever had and the reforms that have been done in the past eight years, more than 150 reforms. They’re more independent, or they are independent.
“They can actually open their own businesses. They can have their own access to their own, you know, live without any guardians. They’re no more guardians… People still talk about that, but that has changed. They’re more independent. Saudi is one of the safest countries in the world, even with the numbers and ranking within the G20… We guarantee everyone’s safety.”
In October, more than 100 women’s football players wrote to FIFA demanding that the world federation would end its sponsorship deal with Aramco. They called the deal “a middle finger to women’s football”.
Bonmati’s Barcelona teammate Alexis Putellas said: “The men’s Super Cup is already there and I think that basketball, Formula 1, tennis are also held there… I’m starting to get the feeling that this fighting is only a women’s issue. I think that here we either all go together or we don’t go. We are at a point where if we fight we do it all together. If not, I have the feeling that in the end, the one who always comes out the worse are the women. It’s time to rethink many things.”
She added that she needed more time to analyse the implications.
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