The temperature difference to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, located 4,300 kilometers away, is about 40 degrees when Urheilu meets the football coach Rosa Lappi-Seppälän, 49, in Helsinki. The employment contract of the experienced professional coach expired at the turn of the year, after which Lappi-Seppälä has spent time in both of his hometowns, i.e. Helsinki and Monza, Italy.
It wasn’t just any employment contract, but the head coaching of the Saudi Arabian women’s A national team, for which Lappi-Seppälä signed a contract for the year 2023.
The parties announced in October that the contract will expire on December 31 and the Finn’s successor will be a highly meritorious Spanish coach Lluís Cortés. According to Lappi-Seppälä, the parties parted in good spirits.
The oil-rich country hosting the Men’s World Cup in 2034 has been in the Western world because of their human rights situation the subject of harsh criticism for a long time, and Lappi-Seppälä knew that this theme would take center stage when he took on the job offered.
– I don’t regret anything and I would very likely take the opportunity again if it came up. The experience was great, and I think I was able to advance a lot of the things I was hired to promote. Women’s football is growing and developing at a tremendous pace in Saudi Arabia, states Lappi-Seppälä, and emphasizes that there is no denying the grievances of Saudi society.
When a Finnish golfer Kalle Samoa recently claimed the right to play the Saudi-funded LIV tour, it guaranteed him a million in income for the year that started. Recently, Saudi Arabia has also recruited top soccer players to its league clubs with big money About Cristiano Ronaldo and About Karim Benzema from
Rosa Lappi-Seppälä’s motives for going to Saudi Arabia have also been suspected to be purely financial, which the woman does not accept in the first place.
– I would accept it if I had earned millions in Saudi Arabia, but now we weren’t even talking about hundreds of thousands, really. The pay was of course good, but by no means luxury. That’s why this review has been a little hard for me to swallow. Above all, I wanted to get a new experience in a new football culture and take a professional example there.
Finnish companies visible
In Lappi-Seppälä’s opinion, for some reason different standards are often required from sports than from other areas of life.
– There are somewhat miraculous double standards in use here. I saw many with my own eyes in Saudi Arabia logos of Finnish companies right in the street scene. Many Finnish engineers and people from the healthcare industry have worked in the country. They have not been subject to such criticism.
Finland’s exports to Saudi Arabia in 2021 were approx 300 million euro and the trade balance has a strong surplus.
Lappi-Seppälä also noted high-level Finnish business influencers as visitors to various fairs and other business events.
The head coach does not consider himself to have been a PR tool for the Saudi administration either.
– I wasn’t a so-called public figure there. I was not invited to television or interviewed in any other way except for the football association’s own media channels. Of course, the team was featured a lot, and the matches are televised. In general, I would say that the picture of the Arab world is much more diverse in, for example, Italy, Spain and France than in Finland.
Lappi-Seppälä spent about 9.5 months in Saudi Arabia in 2023. The camps were long and handing the players over to the head coach for the country’s eight major league clubs was quite an honor. The country’s football association established a women’s division in 2019 and of national team activities 2021. There are players from around 30 countries in the women’s main series.
Saudi Arabia selected women for its Olympic team for the first time in London 2012.
On the men’s side, football has a long tradition in Saudi Arabia. The team has appeared in the World Championships six times. In the last World Cup in Qatar 2022, Saudi Arabia was the only team to defeat the tournament champion team, Argentina, in the opening group match.
17 countries below
The Uefa Pro-level Finnish coach also trained female coaches in totally football-crazy Saudi Arabia. In the women’s Fifa ranking, the country is ranked 175, with only 17 countries below it.
– Some of the players are surprisingly good, but the activity is characterized by the fact that their experience of systematic club coaching with high standards is still very short. The age group that is now in the A national team does not make Saudi Arabia a contender for the top countries. But there, in the background, a large group of girls are already receiving professional coaching, who will become the core of the A national team in 6–7 years. Then the situation is completely different.
Lappi-Seppälä lived in an area intended for foreign workers, i.e. “expats”, in a studio-type apartment, from which he went to work in his car. The players mainly lived locally with their parents, but some also lived independently on their university’s campus. There were no family members in the team. No income tax was withheld from the salary, but the tax collection is mainly collected through value added and consumption taxes.
The coaching team led by a Finn included about 10 people. All in all, an international team worked in the background of the A national team.
– We were from eight countries. Head coach, two assistant coaches, goalkeeper coach, video coach, mental coach, nutritional therapist, muscle care, media relations. The resources were, for example, very appropriate in terms of tools and technology, but not at any level of ökyly.
The physiotherapists and the doctor were women.
A grateful reception
Although the position of women in Saudi Arabia has improved, women’s right to, for example, goal-oriented competitive sports is still not taken for granted.
– The players showed great gratitude towards the coaching and the opportunity they got. They know that they are doing very important pioneering work for future generations.
Lappi-Seppälä freely praises his treatment in the country.
– Polite, appreciative, hospitable, open-minded. The country’s big cities did not at all correspond to the conservative image I had when I got there.
Lappi-Seppälä has an optimistic view of Saudi Arabia’s development.
– If I go to the country again in, say, 15 years, it will be a different country than it is now in a very positive sense. The young population will change that.