How a Saudi basketball coach is giving local talent a chance to shine

DUBAI: When Mohanned Shobain fell in love with basketball at the age of 15, little did he realize that it would become his full-time career. Nor could he have imagined that he would one day be coaching the next generation of Saudi stars and encouraging young women to take up what was until recently a male-dominated sport in the Kingdom.

Now, as Saudi Arabia hosts its first-ever women’s basketball tournament, Shobain is at the forefront of efforts to promote and develop the sport among women in the country and give local talent the chance to shine in the international arena.

A Saudi Premier League champion, he opened his first Swish Basketball Academy in Jeddah in 2017. It was followed by four more in the city and one in Riyadh.

His leading role in developing the sport of basketball in the Kingdom, particularly among women, is a serendipitous continuation of work he began as a student, when he wrote a thesis focusing on gender inequalities in sports. He said that when he returned home to the Kingdom after completing his studies, it served as a major motivation for him to improve the sports environment for both genders.

To that end, Shobain took a team of girls to Romania to compete in a three-on-three World Cup qualification tournament in 2019, and a boys’ team to take part in a competition in Dubai in 2018. Last year, the club helped to host the Saudi Kingdom Cup in Jeddah. This summer, he will take a girls’ team to Europe to take part in a basketball camp and develop their skills.

In the meantime, the Swish Basketball Academy is one of the organizers of the All-Women Saudi Basketball Tournament, the first event of its kind for women in the country, which began on Jan. 22 and continues until March 3, with games