From Discussion to Design: Early Lessons from Riyadiya 2026
The first round of Riyadiya Action Groups brought together senior voices across sport, policy, investment, academia, athlete development, media, and governance. The discussions were held as closed-door working sessions to allow participants to speak openly about the barriers that are often difficult to address on public stages.
The aim was not to repeat familiar statements about the importance of women’s sport. The aim was to ask a more practical question: What needs to be built next?
1. Data exists, but it is not yet a shared evidence base
One of the clearest takeaways was that the region does not need to startfrom zero. There is already useful data on physical activity, school-ageparticipation, public health, and some institutional programmes.
But this data is often fragmented, inconsistently defined, and notdesigned to track girls and women across the full sport pathway.
Participation data is not the same as pathway data. Knowing how many girls are active is important, but it does not tell us who progresses into clubs, leagues, elite sport, coaching, refereeing, administration, media, leadership, or entrepreneurship.
This matters because without a shared evidence base, it is difficult to know where talent is lost, where investment should go, and what progress should be measured against.
A possible Riyadiya output for November is a first version of a Women’s Sport Evidence Framework: a practical starting point for mapping data, defining indicators, and building trust around future data-sharing.
2. Women’s sport must move beyond CSR
The Action Groups also highlighted a major commercial challenge: women’s sport is still too often framed as CSR or social impact, rather than as a credible market opportunity.
CSR can be a useful starting point, but it should not become theceiling.
For sponsors and investors to engage more confidently, women’s sport needs stronger commercial packaging. This includes clearer audience insight, better storytelling, stronger event propositions, visible athletes, measurable value, and practical examples of where investment has worked.
The question is not only whether capital isavailable. It is whether women’s sport opportunities are ready to receivecapital.
A potential Riyadiya output is a Capital Readiness and Sponsorship Playbook that helps rights holders, clubs, federations, founders, and institutions build more investable propositions.
3. Pathways are still too invisible
A recurring theme across the discussions was that girls and women oftenenter sport without seeing a clear route forward.
The pathway from participation to elite competition, or from sport into a wider sports-industry career, is still too informal. Progress often depends on individual resilience, family support, or one-off opportunity rather than structured systems.
This creates drop-off at multiple stages, especially around adolescence, education pressures, motherhood, and career transition.
The Action Groups pushed for a broader definition of pathways: not only athletes reaching elite competition, but women becoming coaches, referees, administrators, media professionals, founders, mentors, owners, and leaders.
If girls can see a future in sport, they are more likely to stay in sport.
4. Legacy means continuity
The Legacy and Impact discussion moved beyond the idea of legacy asmedals, events, or symbolic visibility.
The stronger definition was continuity.
· Do women remain connected to sport after competition?
· Can they return as coaches, mentors, leaders, media figures, founders,or decision-makers?
· Are institutions creating systems that allow women to shape sport overtime?
Visibility matters, but it must be converted into influence.
This means athlete transition, mentorship, leadership development, media visibility, and institutional pathways are not “soft” issues. They are part of the infrastructure of women’s sport.
5. The next step is commitment
The first Riyadiya Action Groups surfaced barriers. The second cycle will focus more directly on choices, priorities, and practical outputs.
By the Riyadiya Conference in November, the ambition is to move from conversation to concrete tools that can support institutions, sponsors, federations, policymakers, athletes, and partners across the region.
The work ahead is not about solving every challengeat once.
It is about building credible starting points: better evidence, clearer pathways, stronger investment propositions, and a more serious definition of legacy.