Jeddah United fulfills basketball dream 20 years in the making

Everything starts with a dream. Then a goal.

Almost 20 years ago, Lina Almaeena had a dream to set up a basketball team under the name Jeddah United.

At the time, establishing a competitive female basketball team was not as easy as it is today, quite simply because in the past, the Kingdom had no basketball competitions for women to speak of.

But things have changed drastically in recent years.

Female sports and leagues are proliferating and only recently, saw many individuals and teams take part in the Saudi Games 2022, one of the country’s biggest-ever sporting events.

The tournament saw competitions in more than 45 sports, and one of them was women’s basketball.

It has been a long road to get to this point for Almaeena and her colleagues. “Jeddah United started around 20 years ago at a time when sports for girls was self-censored, when there was no legislation for sports clubs, no PE in school,” Almaeena said.

“Throughout the years, Jeddah United, under a commercial license, trained tens of thousands of women and young girls in team sports within private courts and fields. The women’s team traveled the world, from Malaysia to the US, to learn from playing friendly matches with other teams, as well as changing stereotypes of Saudi women in the media.”

“We tried as a sports community to recruit international experts living in the Kingdom,” she said. “We also hired female coaches and collaborated with international federations like the NBA and WNBA, with the aim of promoting the culture of sports, and especially team sports, in the Kingdom. We started a Khobar United branch and Riyadh United in 2011 as our vision was a united, energetic society.”

The years of hard work paid off. “We are so honored to have won