DUBAI: The ultra-conservative Gulf kingdom of Saudi Arabia could be on the verge of allowing women to attend football matches at at least one stadium, the government-run al-Sharq newspaper reported on Saturday. Quoting an unnamed source, the newspaper said the government was looking to allow women to watch matches from a new facility that will be finished by 2014 in the Western Red Sea city of Jeddah. Previously, women in Saudi Arabia were barred from attending matches due to the kingdom's strict policy of forbidding the mixing of genders, but the new stadium is to include a “family section” with private booths and areas for women to attend matches, the report added. The move has been received well by some, but women's rights advocates in the country continue to demand more reform and change in the country where women were only last year given the right to run in local elections and still cannot drive. “I think we are seeing some opening ups of the country, but we still want more changes to give us women a life to do things in public,” said Noha, a university student in Riyadh. She told Bikyamasr.com that “in order to hang out with friends in public it is very hard and always people are watching. It is not a good situation.” International and local rights groups in the region have demanded Saudi Arabia give more rights to women in the country, but the government, despite inklings of change, has only recently began to talk about women's issues. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/42DjN Tags: Football, Sport Section: Latest News, Saudi Arabia, Women
