Women in Sport in the Middle East - Where Are We Now?

Let me tell you what people get wrong about women in sport in the Middle East.

They assume we aren't here. That the opportunities don't exist. That the region hasn't made room for women in sport - and that those of us who have built careers here did so in spite of the culture rather than alongside it.

That misconception frustrates me. Not because the journey has been easy - it hasn't. But because it erases the very real, very meaningful progress that has been made. And it does a disservice to every woman who has show up, competed, coached, commentated, and led in this region despite the odds.

So let's set the record straight.

What Has Changed - And It's Real.

I have been in and around sport in the Middle East for 14 years.I have watched this landscape shift in ways that would have seemed unlikely when I started out.

The recognition for women in sport has grown - genuinely and visibly. Where once our achievements were footnotes, they are now headlines. Female athletes are being celebrated, platformed, and held up as role models in ways that simply weren't happening when I began my career.

Perhaps more importantly, pathways into sport as a profession are opening up. Young women today can look at careers in coaching, commentary, sport management, sport science, and media in a way that felt almost impossible a decade ago. The infrastreucture is being built. Slowly - but it is being built.

And then there is the newly released sports agenda, which includes formal inclusion policies for women in sport. This is not a small thing. Policy shapes culture. When inclusion is written into an agenda at that level, it signals to every institution, every organisation, and every decision maker that women belong in this space. Officially. Unapologetically.

That matters enormously.

What Still Needs to Change - And I'll Be Honest About It.

Progress is real. But progress is not the same as equality. And I have never believed in celebrating progress so loudly that we stop pushing for more.

The conversation that still needs to happen - urgently, openly, without apology - is financial.

Women in sport in the Middle East are not being paid equally. The investment in female sport, the sponsorship, the contracts, the prize money - it does not reflect the talent, the dedication, or the growing audience that women's sport commands. And until it does, we are asking women to build careers on passion alone while their male counterparts build them on viable, sustainable income.

Equal pay is not a radical idea. It is a basic one. And it is the next frontier for women's sport in this region.

What I Want Decision Makers to Hear.

The policies are coming. The recognition is growing. The talent has always been there.

What is needed now is financial commitment to match the rhetoric. Invest in women's sport - not as a gesture, not as a diversity checkbox, but as a genuine belief that it is worth investing in. Because it is.

Spomsor female athletes. Pay female commentators, coaches, and sport professionals equally. Fund women's leagues and tournaments with the same seriousness as men's. Create pipelines that don't just open doors but keep them open.

What I Want Every Young Woman in This Region to Hear.

The space exists. It is imperfect, it is still evolving, and there will be days when you feel it wasn't built with you in mind.

But you belong in it anyway.

The women who came before you fought for the recognition that exists today. The women coming after you are counting on you to fight for what still needs to change. And the most powerful thing you can do - for yourself and for all of them - is to show up, be excellent, and refuse to be invisible.

The Middle East is not behind on women in sport. It is on its way. And the destination is worth every step of the journey.