Female tennis players accused of complicity in Saudi Arabia ‘sportswashing’

As the world’s best female tennis players take to the court in Riyadh for the “crown jewel” event of the year, a young fitness instructor languishes in a Saudi prison.

Manahel al-Otaibi, 30, was sentenced to 11 years in jail in a secret trial in January for “terrorism offences” relating to social media posts in support of women’s rights.

Her arrest shocked and frightened her older sister, Fawzia al-Otaibi.

“I feel terrible to see my sister is in a prison, and the other women from outside came to play [tennis],” she said.

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) finals are being played in the country this week — the first professional women’s tennis event to be held in the Gulf nation as part of a three-year deal.

The move has divided the tennis world.

Some say the WTA should boycott the country until it improves its human rights record, particularly for women and LGBT groups.

Critics highlight that women still live under male guardianship laws in Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is illegal and can be punishable by death.

Others, however, point to the progress that has been made and suggest the sport can have a positive impact in the kingdom.

Don’t be silent, Saudi women plead

Ms al-Otaibi and other Saudi women’s rights activists are calling on the athletes to use their platforms to call for change and demand the release of women like Manahel.

Lina al-Hathloul, a London-based activist, is the younger sister of Loujain al-Hathloul, who campaigned against a ban on women’s driving and spent 1,001 days in prison.

“I don’t want Saudi Arabia to be a pariah,” Lina al-Hathloul told the ABC.

“I don’t want to deprive my people of anything. What I want is that these events do not contribute to covering up the reality on the ground.

She pointed to the case of another woman, Salma al-Shehab, who was sentenced to 34 years in prison for following and retweeting activists — including a tweet from Ms al-Hathloul.

“It just tells you how repressive everything has become,” she said.

Speaking to the ABC from Scotland, with translation help from her husband, Ms al-Otaibi said the situation was akin to “sportswashing”.

Sportswashing is where a beloved sporting event is used to distract from unethical practices or launder a tarnished reputation.

“I see that tennis players and those promoting Saudi Arabia are not contributing to change by their participation,” Ms al-Otaibi said.

She said she would prefer for the players not to attend and explicitly cite human rights abuses as the reason, but she said if they did go, the least they could do was talk about those abuses and add pressure to the government.

What do the players think?

World number one Aryna Sabalenka said she personally didn’t have an issue with playing in Riyadh, and it was important to inspire a younger generation through tennis.

“I saw everything here is quite chill,” the Belarusian said.

“The effort they put into women’s sport here is incredible. I’m really impressed. I’m really happy to be here and to be part of, I would say, some sort of history here.”

American Coco Gauff, who has been outspoken on social justice issues including Black Lives Matter, said she was very aware of the situation in Saudi Arabia and had brought up questions about LGBT rights on calls with the WTA.

“We can’t just come here and play our tournament and leave. We have to have a real program and a real plan in place … I’m also very aware that we’re not going to come here and just change everything.

“I do think sport can have a way to open doors to people.”

Billie Jean King, who founded the WTA and is seen as a pioneer for gender equality in sport, in interviews last year appeared open to Saudi investment, although she said the way women were treated in the country was a concern.

“I want change, if we go … I’m big on engagement and inclusion, so it’s a tough one,” she said.

“All I know is I’ve never seen change without engagement.”

But fellow former champions Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova were against the idea, arguing in an op-ed this year that they did not “build women’s tennis for it to be exploited by Saudi Arabia”.

“Staging the WTA final there would represent not progress, but significant regression,” they wrote in the Washington Post.

That column was criticised by Saudi ambassador to the US, Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud, who said it was based on “outdated stereotypes and western-centric views”.

She pointed to improvements for women in the country, including the lifting of a driving ban, greater economic participation, and removing some restrictions under the male guardianship system.

But human rights groups say that failing to abolish the male guardianship system altogether, and instead codifying it in law, risks undermining modest gains for women.

Saudi Arabia accused of ‘sportswashing’

The WTA Finals come with a $23 million prize pool, but it’s not the only event where Saudi Arabia has been splashing cash.

Last month, a “Saudi Kings” exhibition match saw six of the top male tennis players competing, with the winner Jannik Sinner bagging $9 million. (In contrast, he won $3.15 million for winning this year’s Australian Open).

Rafael Nadal too has come under fire for becoming an ambassador for Saudi Arabian tennis. 

But it’s not just tennis — Saudi Arabia has invested eye-watering sums in football, golf, boxing and Formula 1.

It’s part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, which seeks to diversify the country’s economy away from oil.

Tracey Holmes, a professorial fellow in sport at the University of Canberra, said sportswashing wasn’t the full picture, and there was some hypocrisy as the same human rights lens wasn’t always applied to the West. 

“It’s always very common in the West to refer to it as sportswashing, but people don’t bury down and have a look at the way sport is being used to try and change their own societies to bring about positive change,” she said.

“Of course raise sportswashing and of course raise human rights, but you need to raise them when we’re talking about the West as well, and that rarely happens.”

Minky Worden, the director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, said the WTA missed an opportunity to insist on improved rights for women before staging the finals there.

“They haven’t done their due diligence on what the human rights conditions are in the country, and it doesn’t send a signal of respect for women’s rights,” she said.

WTA chief executive officer Portia Archer defended the decision this week.

“We often play in environments and in countries that have different customs, different cultures, and in some cases different value systems than I might have personally or that the WTA may have as an organisation based in the United States,” she said.