This study investigates the alignment between Saudi Arabia's Sports for All (SFA) policy and women's experiences in sports participation. The study employs Bacchi's ‘What Is the Problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) framework as its theoretical framework. This framework not only enables a policy critique but also provides a lens to uncover unexamined narratives influencing women's experiences in sports. Interviews were conducted with women from diverse social classes and age groups to provide nuanced insights into their participation experiences. The research highlights three main findings. First, the lack of strategies tailored for women points to a gap between the policy goals and their implementation. Second, given that both Saudi women and men exhibit low sport and physical activity (PA) participation rates when compared internationally, the need for nuanced gender and background-specific policies is emphasised. Third, the study provides insights suggesting that policymakers should move beyond numeric targets and focus on women's varied and non-homogeneous experiences. The results call for policy reformulation that recognises women's real-life conditions in Saudi Arabia and recommends setting specific, qualitative targets for women's sports participation. This paper contributes to the relatively limited literature on both Saudi women's involvement in sport and Saudi domestic sport policy.
bamuhair et al. (Thu,) studied this question.