Money can’t buy happiness of Saudi women

WHEN you think of great leaps in women’s rights, a number of events come to mind. New Zealand became the first place in the world to allow women to vote in 1893.

A year later, South Australia was the first place in the world to not only let women vote but also stand for parliament.

Then, of course, you think of that other great mecca of women’s rights – Saudia Arabia.

In 2018, it made a groundbreaking decision that truly set the standard for feminism worldwide – women were given permission to drive.

Such a novel idea.

So it’s no wonder FIFA has seen fit to put this great champion of women’s rights up in lights as a major sponsor for – of all things – soccer’s Women’s World Cup.

No, it isn’t a script for an episode of Yes Minister. It’s the real deal.

FIFA has gone on and on about how it wants this to be the biggest Women’s World Cup ever. It has split the event across Australia and New Zealand to get maximum coverage and wants to use it to promote and grow the women’s game around the world.

But, in the same breath, it is happy to take money from a country with one of the worst records in the world on human rights and the subjugation of women.

Despite the fact they are now mercifully allowed to drive motor vehicles, women in Saudi Arabia have a lifelong male guardian who makes decisions such as whether they are allowed to marry or leave prison.

Women who flee from domestic violence or abuse can be arrested and taken back to their families.

Salma al-Shehab, who had been studying in the UK, was last year jailed for 34 years and banned from travelling for another 34 years, after she returned to Saudi Arabia to visit her family. Her crime was retweeting anti-Saudi Arabian dissidents and activists.

A sporting body is welcome to accept money from whomever or whatever it wants.

But it cannot in one breath carry on about how much it is doing to promote women’s sport and, in another, pocket dosh from one of the worst anti-women regimes in the world.

And strangely enough, the usually vocal left are strangely silent.

Where are all the people who got their knickers in a knot when Gina Rinehart – one of this country’s biggest sporting philanthropists – wanted to sponsor the national netball team?

One Indigenous player cost the team $15m because she took issue with comments Rinehart’s father made 40 years ago.

The usual suspects applauded and said the sins of the father should be laid upon the children.

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, you can’t go to many workplaces or restaurants without being segregated by sex right now – not 40 years ago – and apart from former Socceroo Craig Foster, no one says boo.

Might it be because it is an Islamic kingdom, bound by the Koran as its constitution and ruled under sharia law?

It’s not a Christian country, so we can’t touch it.

Diversity at its best.