JEDDAH, 3 August — A British student basketball team, headed by one of UK’s top coaches, held a training session alongside the Saudi National Team at a specially organized camp in Jeddah earlier this week.
It was held under the patronage of Prince Talal ibn Badr ibn Saud ibn Abdul Aziz, president of Saudi Basketball Federation (SBF). SBF hosted the event as part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on sports cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the UK.
Dr. Laszlo Nemeth, a top UK coach who has led several sporting delegations to the Middle East, headed the 16-member British team.
The team trained on a variety of basketball techniques, which led to friendly matches held at the General Presidency of Youth Welfare court, Jeddah Sports City, on Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The visiting team was previously in Egypt on a camp and performed very well in the friendly matches it played there.
SBF Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al-Mossad said: “This was a great opportunity for our young Saudi sportsmen. Not only did the athletes get an understanding of different approaches to the sport, but also these kinds of events — with such young people — help create cross-cultural understanding. It was very exciting to see athletes from such different backgrounds working and learning alongside each other.”
Nemeth said this was one of many visits to the Kingdom this year across a wide spectrum of sports as part of the MoU’s activities. “It was a pleasure to work with Saudi coaches,” he said, adding: “The MoU contributes not only culturally but directly to the Kingdom’s Saudization efforts. When the MoU started back in 1987 there were few Saudi national coaches. Now, there are more than 500 working in many different sports.”
The General Presidency for Sports & Youth Welfare in the Kingdom and BAE Systems for the UK jointly administer the MoU.
It aims to hold a number of events each year to bring together UK and Saudi sportsmen and schoolchildren to increase ties between the two countries. “Last year, a record number of 44 events were held involving bicycle races, tennis tournaments, and also the start of MSc courses in sports medicine for Saudi professionals,” said Peter Waddell, who directs the MoU for BAE Systems — the name of the new company formed by the November 1999 merger of British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems. The company, which employs around 2,700 Saudi nationals in the Kingdom and has provided training for thousands more employed in external organizations, claims to be a global systems company committed to delivering outstanding capability worldwide in the defense and aerospace sectors.
Saudi-British sporting connections grew steadily between 1970 and 1990. The sport link was officially established in 1987 following the MoU. The MoU envisages that the two countries will endeavor to encourage and promote cooperation guided by a mutual interest in strengthening cultural and technical cooperation in sports and youth welfare.
