Saudi businesswomen have confirmed that sports investment is now promising in the Kingdom, especially with the launch of the vision of the Kingdom of 2030, which gave the sports sector great attention and aims to increase the proportion of sports practitioners from 13% to 40%.
They pointed to the importance of spreading the cultures to other sports besides football, which holds the bulk of the concerns of the Saudi public, and that the sports sector is distinguished from other economic sectors with a variety of investments. In fact, it is a broad area for supporting investments.
They stressed the importance of good knowledge of the entrants and future entrepreneurs to establish projects related to sports investment in all aspects of the project and all the details of construction and operating and expected revenues, which is of great importance in the development of the project on a sound and clear basis.
Community Sports
This came during a meeting of pioneer dialogue, held by Asharqia Chamber, represented by the Young women Business Council, at its headquarters on Tuesday evening, September 25. The meeting was entitled "Sports investment and its impact on the quality of life." The meeting was held in the presence of many young businesswomen and young businessmen of the Eastern region and a number of interested and specialists in sports investment.
The meeting was conducted, Lubna Bint Abdulaziz Al Khalidi, who hosted Haifa Ben Ahmed Al-Sabab, Member of the Executive Council of Young businesswomen at the Chamber of Commerce and executive Director of the Saudi Mass Participation Federation.
Al-Sabab affirmed that the quality of life program means, first and foremost, improving the lifestyle of the individual and the family and building a society in which everyone has a good life.
She gave the young people an overview of the Federation, its origin, its mission and its vision that is in line with the vision of the Kingdom of 2030.
She pointed out that it is one of the executive branches of the General Authority for Sport and aims to promote community sport by expanding the base of sports practitioners in the Kingdom on a regular basis weekly through raising the weekly practice rate from 13% to 20% by 2020, as well as spreading cultures to sports other than football.
Supporting investments
Al-Sabab said that the increase in the proportion of practitioners of sport in the Kingdom opens - undoubtedly - the area for more investments in the sports field, whether the opening of sports academies or other supporting investments.
She explained that the Federation, in accordance with its functions, seeks to create a sustainable sports sector by working to increase the rates of scholarship and work with universities to open sports disciplines, in addition to providing full support for training programs specialized in sports, which establishes a sports sector on a coherent basis.
Al-Sabab talked about the tracks and initiatives through which the Federation works to promote community sports as well as increase the attractiveness of sports investment, such as an active community initiative aimed at building a healthy society practicing sports, as well as the role of the Federation with the municipalities and other responsible bodies for the preparation of infrastructure in cities and provide them with sports tracks such as cycling, walking and running in the gardens and some public places, in addition to workshops and lectures to spread the awareness of the importance of exercise.
Patience and keeping the hope
The meeting also included a leading women's sports investment experience, a sportswear brand owner with a sports center, Fatima Bint Said Batouq.
She talked about her experience in opening sports centers and the challenges she faced in her project.
She pointed to the importance of the coming and receptors to the trend to invest in the sports sector patiently and not lose hope in achieving the goals.
It is hoped that the procedures will be unified through one entity through which the licensing process can be facilitated and followed up.
She pointed out that the challenges now are much less than before, especially in the light of the vision of the Kingdom of 2030 and the opening of broad areas for women where they can play a large role in the society.
The default connection
Fatima Al-Roumi, the owner of Insiab Yoga center, believed that the vision of the Kingdom of 2030 has created a broad and easy space for all those who want to be entrepreneurs and to go to investment in general and sports investment in particular.
Al-Roumi said that she opened a yoga studio in June this year and that she is witnessing increasing demand and making significant progress on the other day.
She pointed out that sports investment, like the rest of the other projects in terms of material return, where the link to the study and the proper planning, the more good study of the project whenever it achieved good financial returns.
She referred to the ease with which she launched her project and that all of her steps were taken electronically from initial to the final steps.
She is considering her project as a live translation of the major changes taking place in the Kingdom at the present time.
