Arab News has consistently supported national and international events and through its wide coverage has given a new dimension to sports coverage. The paper’s coverage of national and international football is particularly strong and has helped raise the level of the game of various clubs within the Kingdom and of the national team at the Gulf and international levels.
This is the avowed opinion held by a cross-section of sports enthusiasts, sportsmen and sportswriters. Aside from its daily coverage of local, regional and world sports, Arab News has been publishing a special section on sports every Friday. The section is dedicated to local sports and many sportsmen and readers make it a point not to miss it.
An outstanding feature of the weekly sports section is the generous contribution it gets from active sportsmen and sports and specialist writers. Regular specialist writers include Sunil Gavaskar (expert cricket commentator), S.K. Sham (cricket and hockey analyst), Aijaz Ahmed Khan of JCL (local cricket) Pervez Bari (sports contributor), Mahmoud Ahmad (football, volleyball, handball), and Chito P. Manuel (golf, basketball, bowling and equestrian).
“Name the sport and it is exhaustively covered,” says Shahid Amin, president of the Jeddah Cricket League. “In fact, cricket gets full coverage wherever it is played, locally or internationally.”
The sports section has created a segment of regular readership among Filipinos, as the sports in which they are especially active get regular and adequate coverage. That includes, tennis, volleyball, basketball, golf, bowling, chess, and dart to mention a few
“The daily has not ignored any game wherever it is played,” says Mahmoud Ahmad, our sports writer. “The paper should be given credit for introducing, supporting and popularizing cricket across the Kingdom,” he says.
Cricket is mostly played among expatriates hailing from South Asian countries, but the recent interest shown by young Saudis is remarkable. “We see an increased number of young Saudis playing cricket,” he says.
While the newspaper has rendered yeoman service to all sports activities, its regular and exhaustive coverage of football has been remarkable. This is acknowledged by the large following that the sport has across the Kingdom, as also the players and football writers. The Sports Weekly Special has additionally boosted the newspaper’s circulation.
The Kingdom’s is the only team to have qualified for the soccer World Cup three times in a row - in 1994, 1998 and 2002, which is a record by itself. If the national football team has carved a niche for itself internationally, the credit should equally go to the print and visual media, and Arab News in particular, because of the exposure it has given to the game over the past 30 years.
The paper has recorded the rise of the national football team through its pages over the years. The heights the national team has achieved is due to the focus it has given to the game and the players.
The Kingdom has also been hosting major international events, among them the 1989 FIFA Youth World Cup, Asian Basketball Confederation (ABC) men’s championship in 1997, Islamic Equestrian Championship in 2003, and the ongoing Islamic Solidarity Games. Arab News has always stood out in its comprehensive coverage of such events.
The Kingdom was the soccer Asian Cup champion in Singapore in 1984 and in Qatar in 1988. It reached the Asian Cup final in Japan in 1992 and lost, but managed to win the cup in the UAE in 1996.
The team also reached the Asian Cup final in Lebanon in 2000 for the fourth time. It set a record for figuring in the final for the fifth time, but lost to Japan 1-0. Regretfully, the Kingdom did not qualify in China in 2004.
The Kingdom qualified for the World Cup three times in a row — in the United States in 1994, France in 1998 and Korea and Japan in 2002. The Kingdom is most likely to repeat this for the fourth time by qualifying for the World Cup in Germany in 2006.
“Over the years, the standard of the Kingdom’s football has maintained a rising graph,” says another football writer. It is now a name to reckon with in the international arena. In the past few years in particular it has changed dramatically.
At Gulf level, the Kingdom has won the championship three times — in UAE in 1996, in the Kingdom in 2000, and in Kuwait in 2002.
Local clubs like Ittihad, Al-Ahli, Hilal, Nasr and Shabab say they owe a lot to the media for the exposure given to their sports activities. “We’re particularly grateful to Arab News for the coverage given to us and all other clubs,” an Ittihad management executive said.
Players also acknowledge that the media have played a big role in raising the status they enjoy today. Such players include legends like Majid Abdullah of Nasr and Yusuf Al-Thunayan, former Hilal captain nicknamed “Tiger.” Both retired respectively in late 1990s and early in 2000.
The Kingdom’s infrastructure for sports is also among the best in the world, especially its several football stadiums.
What has contributed to their upkeep and improvement is the consistent pressure maintained by the media for their upkeep and improvement. And Arab News has played a significant role toward achieving this, says a senior management executive of Al-Ahli Club.
