Robert McNamara, Head of Research at SBJBC Research Services
Emily Cameron-Blake, Director at Global Sports Policy Ltd
Executive Summary
In June 2026 the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia brought into force its first unified Sports Law in almost four decades, replacing a dispersed body of decrees and federation rules with a single framework covering the licensing, governance, welfare and dispute resolution of the sector.1, 2 This reform has arrived at an interesting moment, as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is preparing the first Global Policy Standards for sport, formally the Global Policy Standards for Inclusive, Equitable and Safe Sport and Physical Education and referred to throughout this report as the UNESCO Global Policy Standards. This will be a framework of twelve standards arranged across four policy areas and expressed at both a minimum and an aspirational level, which is due to be placed before member states and ministers for endorsement in 2027.3, 4 This report compares the new Saudi Sports Law against the UNESCO Global Policy Standards across three key themes: the governance of sport, the safeguarding of athletes and the growth of women’s participation. This paper uses the United Kingdom as the principal point of comparison throughout and looks at how far the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is from meeting the UNESCO Global Policy Standards, where the Kingdom has already succeeded, and what the pace of change has looked like in Saudi sport.
The progress recorded in the Kingdom is substantial but in places remains uneven, in that political commitment, the scale of investment and the development of infrastructure are all well advanced, while the new law draws these together into a coherent legal foundation. It also creates new mechanisms in the form of a national sport organisation register, a sport organisation licensing pathway and an independent anti-doping committee – capable of carrying further governance obligations without requiring new primary legislation. Reform is under way but not yet embedded in the diversity of sporting leadership, in workforce development and in the consistent collection of participation data. Upon publication of this paper, the clearest shortfalls remain in the safeguarding of athletes of all ages (including those most vulnerable as young athletes), in participatory policymaking, and in independent reporting on outcomes and data.
British practice is of direct relevance to each of these current shortfalls, since the United Kingdom operates a published safeguarding benchmark assessed annually by an independent partner, an independent safeguarding disclosure and investigation service made mandatory across publicly funded sport, and a governance code attaching diversity targets, published action plans and a board-level welfare director to the receipt of public money.5, 6, 7 None of that architecture rests on primary legislation, and is instead rested on conditions attached to funding, which is an instrument similar to the licensing conditions now available to the Saudi Ministry of Sport. This report accordingly identifies six practical recommendations that would close some of the remaining distance, of which the most immediate concerns the implementing regulations, unissued at the time of publication, through which safeguarding conditions could be attached to the licensing of academies, schools and coaching roles.
Read the full report here: [SBJBC Sports Law Report with Global Sports Policy]
