Saudi women's football built a funded, top-down structure between 2019 and 2023: a federation department, a nationwide league, a two-tier professional pyramid with prize money, and a national team with a FIFA ranking. The institutions arrived quickly. Results are improving slowly, crowds remain thin, and the human rights questions around the project remain unresolved.
Where Saudi women's football started
For most of their lives, today's senior Saudi players had no formal route into the game. Human Rights Watch's Minky Worden has pointed out that women and girls in Saudi Arabia could not play school sport or attend stadiums until recently, as reported by Inside World Football. A league built from that starting point inherits no club culture and no audience used to watching women play.
The first institutional step came from the federation. The Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) set up a Women's Football Department in 2019, according to FIFA. Everything since has flowed from that office and the state-backed budget behind it. In many other countries, women's football grew upward from clubs and volunteers.
For how other countries in the region have approached the women's game, see this overview of women's football across the Arab world.
How the Saudi Women's Premier League was built
The league pyramid went up in two stages within roughly a year, each announced and organised by SAFF.
The first nationwide league, 2021
The first nationwide women's league kicked off in November 2021 with 16 teams split into three regional groups, FIFA reported. Al-Mamlaka beat Challenge in the final. A regional format let clubs play competitive matches before committing to a single national division.
Premier League and Division One, 2022
On 15 September 2022, SAFF announced a two-tier structure, Arab News reported. The Women's Premier League had eight teams and kicked off on 13 October 2022, with 56 matches scheduled. Division One had 17 teams in three regions. Arab News reported prize money of SAR 250,000 for each Premier League club and SAR 50,000 for each Division One club, a per-club allocation rather than a champion's prize. Arab News is Saudi-owned, so its account sits close to the official line.
Money and contracts
The funding grew quickly. For the second season, SAFF's women's fund amounted to USD 16 million across 70 clubs, covering the league, the cup, under-17 football and futsal, Inside World Football reported in July 2024. The same report counted 87 professional contracts for Saudi players and said 56% of clubs had under-17 teams.
Prize money has quadrupled since the Premier League launched in 2022, and Al-Nassr earned SAR 2 million (USD 531,000) for the latest title, Semafor's Ed Clowes reported in October 2026. Semafor did not give the 2022 figure it compared against.
| Year | Milestone | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | SAFF sets up a Women's Football Department | FIFA |
| Nov 2021 | First nationwide women's league, 16 teams in three regional groups | FIFA |
| Feb 2022 | First official national team match: Saudi Arabia 2-0 Seychelles | FIFA |
| Oct 2022 | Women's Premier League (8 teams) kicks off; Division One has 17 teams | Arab News |
| Mar 2023 | First FIFA ranking entry: 171st | FIFA |
| Jul 2024 | USD 16 million women's fund across 70 clubs; 87 professional contracts for Saudi players | Inside World Football |
| Oct 2026 | Al-Nassr earns SAR 2 million for the latest title | Semafor |
The Saudi Arabia women's national team
The national team followed the same compressed timeline. Its first official match was on 20 February 2022, a 2-0 win over Seychelles in Malé, FIFA reported. The first home match came on 24 September 2022, a 3-3 draw with Bhutan.
Monika Staab coached the team from 2021 and then became technical director, with Rosa Lappi-Seppälä taking over as head coach, according to the same FIFA article. Hiring experienced European coaches gave the programme expertise fast, and also meant outsiders shaped its early football philosophy.
Saudi Arabia entered the FIFA women's ranking at 171st in March 2023. On FIFA's country page, viewed on 27 October 2026, the team sits 157th with 980.32 points, and the next official update is due on 7 December 2026 (FIFA).
The direction is upward, and the pace is modest. Money can build a league in a year. It cannot backdate the childhood football that today's senior players were denied when girls could not play school sport.
What has moved more slowly
Crowds
Crowds remain thin, Semafor reported in October 2026, even as prize money rose; Al-Ittihad defender Ashleigh Plumptre has been organising school trips to the games. On Semafor's account, funding has outpaced demand. No other recent attendance report could be found, and the league publishes no figures.
Who is on the pitch
Clubs attract foreign players with tax-free salaries and expat perks, according to Semafor, which gives no salary figures and says women's pay remains well short of the men's league. Without salary data, outsiders cannot tell how much of the league's spending reaches Saudi players and how much goes to imported talent.
Hosting ambitions
Saudi Arabia was among the unsuccessful bidders when the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Executive Committee, meeting in Bangkok on 15 May 2024, awarded the AFC Women's Asian Cup for 2026 to Australia and for 2029 to Uzbekistan, Inside World Football reported. A home tournament would have given the women's game the kind of stage that Morocco used to build its crowds.
Whose project is this?
A sociologist's starting question about any sport reform is simple: who designed it, and whose daily life does it change? In Saudi women's football the two answers point in different directions.
The official growth narrative
FIFA's coverage frames the programme around growth and participation, presenting the first nationwide league and the national team's ranking debut as milestones for women's football in the country (FIFA, 2022; FIFA, 2023). In that account the speed is the achievement: women who could not play organised football a few years ago now have leagues and a national team.
The sportswashing critique
Human rights groups read the speed as part of a wider image strategy. On 25 April 2024, FIFA and Aramco signed a four-year partnership covering the 2026 men's and 2027 women's World Cups. Amnesty International's Steve Cockburn criticised the deal, citing jailed women's rights activists and describing it as sportswashing (Amnesty International).
In October 2024, more than 100 women players from 24 countries, including Vivianne Miedema, Becky Sauerbrunn and Jessie Fleming, signed an open letter asking FIFA to drop Aramco and set up a player-led review of sponsors, AFP reported via Al-Monitor. FIFA responded that it "values its partnership" and pointed to its investment in the women's game.
Whose lives it changes
The project is plainly top-down: the department, the leagues, the prize money and the fund all came from SAFF. Critics draw their sportswashing argument from exactly that concentration of design in official hands.
Yet the effects land on people below that level. Semafor profiles Bayan Sadagah, who co-founded an amateur team in Jeddah in 2017 "because there was nowhere to play" and now plays for Al-Ittihad in the professional league.
The 87 Saudi players on professional contracts in 2024 (Inside World Football) have a paid career that did not exist before. Girls at the 56% of clubs with under-17 teams have a pathway their mothers lacked. Foreign players gain tax-free income, though how much remains unpublished. The jailed activists Amnesty cites gain nothing from a league title. The institutions that built the project own it, and its benefits reach people unevenly.
For a comparison with another national model in the region, see this piece on Moroccan women's football. Broader conversations on these themes are collected in the interviews and podcast appearances.
What to watch next
The next year will show whether investment starts converting into the slower indicators.
- The FIFA ranking update on 7 December 2026 will show, through any movement from 157th, whether the national team is beating opponents at or above its level (FIFA).
- Published attendance figures, if the league releases them, would be the best single test of local demand.
- Updated counts of Saudi professional contracts, and any credible salary data, would show who the money is actually reaching.
- Whether the share of clubs with under-17 teams grows beyond 56% will matter more for the future national team than any foreign signing.
- Aramco's sponsorship covers the 2027 Women's World Cup, so the player-led criticism of 2024 is likely to return as the tournament approaches.
More analysis of the game's money, institutions and social norms is in the full list of articles.