Many Finnish football fans would be rubbing their eyes on Monday: the women’s national team coach last year Rosa Lappi-Seppälä takes over as the head coach of the Saudi Arabian women’s national team.
That is, in a country where women were still banned from participating in a football match six years ago.
The decision also surprised the coach of the women’s national football team Marko Salorantawho said at the news conference before the Helmariten Croatia match that he heard about Lappi-Seppälä’s new address only on Monday.
Saudi Arabian women have only been playing football for four years. The first head coach of the national team Monika Staab started his position a year and a half ago, in August 2021. He held his first training sessions for the national team over a year ago in November.
The history of women’s football in the country is relatively short and there is a reason for that: the position of women in Saudi Arabia is simply unfortunate.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has certainly made some concessions to polish the country’s public image: for example, women got the right to drive in the summer of 2018 and the right to get a passport without a male guardian’s permission a year later. The dress code has also loosened and nowadays women are even allowed to open their own bank accounts.
Progressive!
The truth is that there is a lot of work to be done: women still have to have a male guardian in 2023, who can be either a father, husband, brother or even the woman’s son.
Women still cannot study, marry or work, if the guardian decides otherwise. Locking a woman at home is still a common means of control in the country.
In reality, the guardian also decides on financial matters in the final games.
In the World Economic Forum’s The Global Gender Gap index, Saudi Arabia ranked 127th out of 146 countries.
And the country’s human rights are nothing to brag about anyway. The death penalty is still actively used in the country: for example, on one Saturday last spring, the country executed 81 people during the same day.
Activists, journalists and human rights defenders fate is often grim (you move to another service) and many protesters have disappeared without a trace.
One of the most famous cases is related to journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. According to the US intelligence service CIA, the murder was ordered by the crown prince.
Saudi Arabia has also been involved in the civil war in Yemen, which, according to the UN, is one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. More than 10,000 children have died or been injured in the war as a direct result of the fighting. A significant part of the war’s civilian casualties have come from airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition.
So why is Saudi Arabia interested in women’s football?
In short: because it sucks the 2030 World Cup. (you switch to another service)
The country has even offered to pay of two other organizers, (you switch to another service) Egypt and Greece, arrangement costs. It has been said that the trio will apply for legal order together.
The international football association Fifa set a goal that all its member countries would have a strategy for women’s football by 2022.
For Saudi Arabia, the women’s national team is therefore important in terms of applying for the competition – just as it was for Qatar when it applied for the World Cup in 2010.
The women’s national team played its first match just weeks before Qatar was named as the 2022 host (Bahrain won that match 17-0, by the way).
In 2012, he was hired as the head coach of the national team Monika Staabwho is also Lappi-Seppälä’s predecessor in the Saudi Arabian national team.
Under Staab, Qatar actively played national matches in 2013-2014 and was also listed in the Fifa world list. After that, however, the activity stopped, and the team has not played a single match in the last eight years.
There is no mention of the women’s national team on the website of the Qatar Football Association.
Read also: What happened to Qatar’s women’s national team? The disputed host country of the World Cup broke a significant promise: “Shameful”
Saudi Arabia has followed in the footsteps of its neighbors in seeking the rights to organize sports events and buying clubs.
Since Saudi Arabia became interested in top sports later than its neighboring countries, it has not spared the difference in tightening up.
In recent years, the oil state has spent up to two billion euros on international sports events.
Newcastle United, which rose to the top of the Premier League, is now owned by PIF, the Saudi state investment fund. The Public Investment Fund is controlled by Crown Prince Bin Salman.
It has also invested in football: both Spanish and Italian Super Cup matches have been played in Saudi Arabia. Recently Fifa granted the country the World Cup for club teams to be played in December. (you switch to another service)
Saudi Arabia will have its first Formula 1 race in 2021. Last year’s race is remembered above all for the missile strike next to the F1 track. However, the Saudi-sponsored race was completed regardless of the drivers’ safety concerns.
In January, it was reported that PIF was interested in the ownership of the entire F1 series.
The controversial LIV tour, which competes with golf’s traditional PGA tour, has also been established with Saudi money, which acquired advertising faces with big money.
Reporters following show wrestling report PIF has also recently acquired the show wrestling organization WWE (you will switch to another service) of the stock. WWE has cooperated with the Saudis for years and organized show wrestling events in Saudi Arabia.
Athletes have been attracted to events organized by the country or as advertising faces for large sums.
The most famous cases from the world of football are, of course, the world champion who became Saudi Arabia’s tourism ambassador with a million dollar contract Lionel Messi and transferred to the Saudi Arabian Al-Nassr after the World Cup Cristiano Ronaldo.
With sports and sporting events, the country tries to deflect attention away from things it dislikes, such as its inadequate human rights situation. In accordance with the Vision 2030 strategy created by the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia also aims to increase tourism and attract investors to the country – and one of the important means is top sports.
Read also: Russian money became too dirty for the sports world, but Saudi Arabia’s investments are fine
Messi and Ronaldo haven’t talked much about human rights, and we haven’t heard much from the male players about the World Cup in Qatar.
On the women’s side, next summer’s tournament organizers Australia and New Zealand did not mince their words when the information about Saudi Arabia’s willingness to sponsor the women’s World Cup became public.
– The proposed Visit Saudi sponsorship cooperation is yet another example of Fifa’s hypocrisy. They claim to respect the rights of women and sexual and gender minorities. At the same time, they have no qualms about accepting sponsorship money from an organization that does not share the same values and does not respect human rights, Australian Federation of Women’s Executive Director Bonita Mersiades commented to The Athletic. (you switch to another service)
The players have also been dismayed by the cooperation. USA star player Alex Morgan called cooperation absurd, (you move to another service) for he would not feel accepted in Saudi Arabia.
The status of female athletes in Saudi Arabia is completely different from that of men.
Why would any Finnish coach want to coach in such a country?
While waiting for Lappi-Seppälä’s comments, one can only guess the reasons.
However, the matter can also be examined by studying Lappi-Seppälä’s predecessor Monika Staabin career path.
At the beginning of the millennium, Staab piloted Frankfurt to victory in the Uefa Cup, the predecessor of the Women’s Champions League, and in addition to that, there are numerous German championships in the trophy cabinet.
Staab jumped to head coach of Saudi Arabia from The Gambia, where he was developing the country’s women’s and girls’ football activities. In recent years, the CV also includes the titles of head coach of the women’s national teams of Bahrain and Qatar.
What would be a better image for these countries than a successful European coach?
Fifa is on its website in published interviews (you move to another service) praised Staab. In the last 14 years, the German pilot says he has worked in 85 countries.
Many of Staab’s projects have, less surprisingly, been financed by the umbrella organization – and less surprisingly, it is precisely in these countries that solid support for the umbrella organization can often be found.
Lappi-Seppälä is not the first European coach in the Middle East.
And certainly not the last.
Other European coaches have been courted in Saudi Arabia, some of whom have left.
Others have refused. For example, the head coach of HPS, which plays in the National League Mari Savolainen said that he received an e-mail inquiry about his interest in going to Saudi Arabia to coach.
He didn’t take up the offer.
– For me, human rights are extremely important values. I don’t get tired of them.
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