Saudi Arabia has invited women to a sports stadium for the first time to attend annual national day celebrations with their families, opening up a previously male-only venue, AFP reported Wednesday (September 20th).
Families will be allowed into the King Fahd stadium in Riyadh, used mostly for football matches, and seated separately from single men to mark the kingdom's 87th National Day this weekend.
"The stadium is ready to receive about 40,000 people divided between individuals and families to be seated separately," the Saudi Press Agency said in a statement.
This marks a shift from previous celebrations in the kingdom, where women are effectively barred from sports arenas by strict rules on segregation of the sexes in public.
