Saudi-First System Design: Part 1 — What Sweden’s Olympic Structure Reveals About Saudi Arabia’s Opportunity to Build the Middle Layer
Opening Positioning Statement
Saudi sport is entering a phase where long-term performance will depend not only on investment, but on how participation, healthcare, rehabilitation, regional capability, and athlete environments develop together over time.
The next phase is not simply expanding elite programmes or participation independently. It is connecting participation, health, education, digital infrastructure, regional delivery, rehabilitation, and federation pathways into one connected system.
Across Europe, smaller nations such as Sweden show that decentralised, federation-led systems can produce sustainable Olympic outcomes without heavily centralised institute models. Sweden won eleven medals at the Paris Olympic Games through a structure built around federations, municipalities, community clubs, and targeted Olympic coordination rather than a UKSI-style national network.
At the same time, Sweden reveals structural tensions and operational stress points highly relevant for Saudi Arabia:
variable middle-layer support structures
decentralised sports medicine provision with uneven regional access
rehabilitation pathways spread across multiple providers, including private
athletes coordinating parts of their own medical care
reactive operational processes, including athletes and practitioners coordinating reports, scans, consultant notes, and medical records independently
inconsistent information flow between practitioners, federations, and healthcare environments
inconsistent standards of care and rehabilitation support
increased complexity surrounding return-to-sport decision making
uneven regional service provision
increasing financial burden on athletes and families
limited regionally coordinated daily training and rehabilitation infrastructure
Within health-system governance, this type of variable coordination is commonly associated with care operating outside integrated pathway structures, where rehabilitation, performance, and healthcare systems evolve separately over time. In practice, this can result in athletes and families assuming responsibility for coordinating medical communication, rehabilitation, and return-to-sport processes independently, increasing both socioeconomic stress and operational risk across the athlete pathway.
These structural characteristics are not unique to Sweden.
They are frequently seen across developing and transitional sport systems in MENA, where participation, healthcare, rehabilitation, and performance environments often develop at different speeds and through separate structures.
The critical distinction is not simply the level of investment entering a system, but whether infrastructure, coordination, and operational capability mature alongside it. Speed and timing also matter, because rapid expansion can create pressure points across developing environments.
Spending, Capability & Burden Transfer
Investment alone does not automatically create stable systems. Long term development emerges when funding is translated into coordinated infrastructure, workforce development, rehabilitation systems, regional accessibility, and integrated pathway support. Where operational structures remain uneven, responsibility often transfers downward to athletes, families, coaches, and local practitioners.
In practice, this may include:
· privately coordinated rehabilitation
· inconsistent medical communication
· variable access to specialist care
· self-managed return-to-sport processes
· increased family financial contribution
· uncertainty surrounding pathway continuity
“Over time, this creates not only operational inefficiency, but also psychosocial strain across athlete environments, alongside increasing stress for families and wider support networks.”
Uncertainty surrounding injury management, rehabilitation timelines, selection processes, financial pressure, and future progression can increase stress for both athletes and families, particularly within emerging systems where coordination structures are still evolving.
The long-term objective of integrated national infrastructure is therefore not simply performance optimisation.
It is the reduction of delivery inconsistency, uncertainty, and unnecessary burden across the wider athlete pathway ecosystem.
Saudi Arabia now has the opportunity to build this middle layer.
Sustainable sporting ecosystems depend not only on investment, but on the strength of the structures supporting growth. As participation expands nationally, regionally, and locally, systems must be able to grow without transferring instability, coordination burden, or operational pressure onto athletes and families. The long term objective is therefore not simply expansion, but creating conditions capable of supporting participation, rehabilitation, performance, and athlete development as the ecosystem over time.
This is not a question of copying Nordic systems.
It is a question of selectively understanding what works structurally, where operational gaps emerge, and how Saudi Arabia can design a culturally aligned system suited to its own institutional, regional, and social realities.
The next competitive advantage in global sport may not emerge from isolated performance departments alone, but from connected infrastructures linking participation, healthcare, rehabilitation, education, digital systems, and athlete pathways across multiple regions and athlete environments.
In practice, organisations may transition through combinations of multidisciplinary and increasingly integrated environments, allowing daily processes, workforce development, and communication structures to develop gradually over time.
As integration improves, communication pathways become clearer, accountability structures strengthen, and standards of care improve across the athlete journey. Athletes no longer need to coordinate between disconnected providers themselves; responsibility, communication, and decision-making become embedded within the system around them.
In this sense, integration is not simply an organisational model. It is a stabilising mechanism that reduces operational friction, strengthens rehabilitation pathways, and improves long-term athlete outcomes.
1. Why Sweden Matters to Saudi Arabia
Sweden offers one of the clearest examples of a federation-led Olympic structure operating without a fully centralised national institute system.
Pathways remain owned by federations. National bodies coordinate rather than control. Municipalities support participation infrastructure. Community clubs drive local engagement.
The Swedish Olympic Committee supports and coordinates performance development, while federations retain responsibility for athlete pathways and sporting direction.
This governance structure is highly relevant because Saudi Arabia already shares aspects of a federation-led system.
“Sweden is therefore useful not because Saudi Arabia should replicate it, but because it provides a different lens through which to understand how sustainable international performance can emerge beyond highly centralised institute systems.”
Sweden’s Paris Olympic performance, (four gold, four silvers, three bronze) also demonstrates that decentralised systems can continue producing world-class athletes despite operating within identifiable structural constraints.
That lesson matters for Saudi federations currently navigating:
pathway development
operational maturity
workforce capability
infrastructure coordination
regional expansion
participation growth
simultaneously.
Saudi Arabia begins from a fundamentally different baseline. For many citizens, including women and girls, structured movement, organised play, and public exercise environments are relatively new. In parts of the population, recreational sport and organised physical activity were historically limited or absent from daily life. The rapid development of projects such as Sports Boulevard and new public spaces reflects both this historical absence of movement environments and a wider cultural shift.
This means Saudi Arabia is not “behind;” it is building from the ground up. And building from the start requires a different kind of system design: one that is sequenced, realistic, and grounded in long-term capability development.
1.2 Adopting the logic, not the structure
Saudi Arabia can observe the logic of Sweden’s system, not its institutional form. Sweden’s model evolved within civic cultures of trust, volunteerism, and generational club traditions. Saudi Arabia does not have these historical layers. Instead, it has:
strong national strategic direction
rapidly developing regional structures
federations with growing operational responsibility
a population entering sport for the first time
women and girls with no inherited or established pathway models
new public spaces, new terminology, and new expectations
This creates the opportunity for a Saudi-first hybrid model, but only if framed realistically:
• Federation-owned pathways remain the central pillar.
• Shared national infrastructure can support areas where capability, coordination, and specialist provision are still developing across the wider ecosystem.
• Regional delivery capability can mature progressively as workforce depth, operational experience, and local environments strengthen over time.
• Participation expansion becomes the long-term foundation for pathway sustainability, workforce development, and future competitive depth.
“Saudi Arabia is not replicating Sweden. Saudi Arabia is constructing a system that has never existed before.”
1.3 The national middle layer as a long-term construction project
In this hybrid model, the middle layer becomes the critical structural asset, but it must be understood as a long-term development process rather than an immediate solution.
This middle layer includes:
sports medicine
rehabilitation
performance services
psychology and mental health
data and monitoring systems
regional coordination mechanisms
Its purpose extends far beyond elite sport. It exists to:
This creates the opportunity for a Saudi-first hybrid model, but only if frame
reduce operational inconsistency across participation, rehabilitation, and performance environments
• improve standards of care and decision-making accountability
• lower long-term health and financial burden on athletes and families
• strengthen pathway sustainability and regional delivery
• support long-term athlete development
• create enough stability around athletes within a rapidly expanding sporting ecosystem
This is not a short-term performance intervention. It is long-term state development. As participation ecosystems expand, governance systems must evolve alongside them through operational learning, workforce development, coordination, and shared delivery structures. Without this, systems can appear administratively functional on paper while inconsistency continues across daily environments, rehabilitation pathways, and regional service provision.
One of the long-term risks in rapidly expanding systems is that infrastructure, policy, and investment can grow faster than the systems needed to support them properly. Over time, this can create gaps between strategy and daily delivery, placing increasing pressure on athletes, families, coaches, and local practitioners.
Saudi Arabia’s advantage
Saudi Arabia’s advantage is that many of these structures are being designed alongside participation growth. This creates an opportunity to build coordination, rehabilitation pathways, workforce development, and integrated governance into the system during expansion rather than retrospectively after problems emerge.
1.4 Final Doctrine
The strategic question for Saudi Arabia is not whether to centralise or decentralise. It is how to build, over time, a national middle layer that strengthens federations recognising, that the Kingdom begins from a limited experiential base and must sequence capability development carefully.
2. Nordic Participation Logic
2.1 Association Culture: Democratic Governance, Member Ownership & Slow Adoption
Nordic sporting systems are deeply shaped by association culture. Sweden’s association culture (föreningsliv) is the structural foundation of its sport system. Clubs are not commercial entities; they are democratically governed associations, shaped by a civic tradition that predates modern sport. The defining legal anchor is the 1999 “51‑percent rule,” which requires that at least 51% of every sports club must be owned by its members. This ensures that clubs remain community institutions rather than investor‑controlled assets.
In practice, members vote on leadership, budgets, long‑term strategy, and even facility decisions. A Swedish club is not a service provider delivering sport to passive consumers. It is a local civic organisation. This creates strong local identity, long-term community continuity, and high levels of participation stability across generations.
This democratic structure produces stability, but it also produces conservatism. Clubs adopt change slowly because change must be negotiated through assemblies, committees, and member education. Federations cannot simply direct clubs; they must persuade, inform, and build consensus. Adoption speeds vary widely: one club may modernise rapidly; another may take years to shift a single governance practice.
“This is not inefficiency; it is the operational reality of democratic association governance. Swedish law formally embeds this structure through the 51% member-ownership rule, reinforcing the position of clubs as civic institutions rather than investor-controlled entities. Education of members can assist with club progression and modernisation.”
This has direct implications for:
· infrastructure modernisation
· integrated service adoption
· data governance
· rehabilitation coordination
· and workforce standardisation
Saudi Arabia’s historical trajectory is structurally different.
The Kingdom developed within a centralised governance environment, where large-scale civic associations and member-owned sporting traditions did not evolve in the same way as in Nordic societies. Clubs emerged within a state-led framework rather than through local democratic structures. Institutional legitimacy therefore flows vertically through governance structures rather than horizontally through member ownership.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia is now entering a new phase of professionalisation and commercial transformation through the privatisation of major clubs and the introduction of strategic investment structures involving entities such as the Public Investment Fund (PIF). This creates a fundamentally different governance trajectory from the Nordic association model.
Saudi clubs are increasingly developing as strategically important sporting assets within a state-led modernisation framework. The objectives are therefore different.
Saudi Arabia’s current transition prioritises:
rapid professionalisation
commercial sustainability
international competitiveness
governance modernisation
infrastructure development
global sporting relevance
These approaches are not directly comparable because they emerge from different historical starting points and national priorities. Sweden’s system evolved over generations; Saudi Arabia is building a modern sport ecosystem within a much shorter time frame.
This creates a dual-track development reality: Saudi Arabia is simultaneously building elite commercial sport and participation infrastructure at the same time. Sweden built these sequentially; Saudi Arabia is building them in parallel.
The strategic challenge for the Kingdom is therefore not whether to become “more Nordic,” but how to ensure that rapid commercial growth at elite level is matched by equally deliberate investment in participation, community infrastructure, and long-term pathway development.
Without this balance, elite commercial expansion and population participation systems risk evolving separately rather than as one integrated sporting ecosystem, a risk seen globally in rapidly commercialising sport systems.
“Saudi Arabia’s opportunity is to design a system where commercial ambition and community participation reinforce each other. The lesson from Sweden is not the model, but the principle: local identity, community engagement, and participation depth are structural assets, and they must be cultivated deliberately in a governance environment that is building them for the first time.”
In highly decentralised systems, integration capacity often develops unevenly because local environments mature at different speeds. This is one reason why middle-layer coordination becomes increasingly important as systems scale
3.Trust: The Invisible Infrastructure of Participation, Health & Decision-Making
In Nordic sport systems, trust functions as a structural enabler. Public institutions, clubs, municipalities, federations, and governing bodies operate within relatively consistent frameworks. Parents routinely delegate responsibility to clubs, clubs rely on municipalities for facilities, and municipalities follow shared standards. This reduces administrative friction and allows decentralised systems to operate with lower levels of oversight.
In these environments, athletes typically disclose injuries, stress, or health concerns earlier because the system provides consistent responses and clear protections. This is not because individuals are more open, but because the institutional environment lowers the perceived risk of negative consequences. Trust, in this sense, is a governance condition that supports standards, values, early intervention, and stable participation.
This is a structural distinction. Early ecosystem formation and the reality can often look like Level 1–2 federation maturity. This can be dependent on the following:
personal trust,
informal communication,
individual initiative,
and human coordination
This is the lived operational realities of an early emerging ecosystem in transition. This can produce uneven operational experiences while governance, workforce capability and participation systems mature simultaneously.
Especially when women and girls’ participation is expanding rapidly, international relationships and new ways of working are forming in real time, while governance structures continue to stabilise. This can create paradoxes, where advanced structural characteristics emerge while operational consistency remains uneven during capability-building phases.
Women and girls’ access to sport and exercise may also be affected by concealment of injury or illness, alongside family perceptions surrounding safety, trust, and participation. In some cases, this can create pressure that disrupts long-term participation and activity.
Systems may demonstrate advanced characteristics while daily consistency still varies during periods of development. Building trust over time becomes a central part of this process. In relationship-led federations, this may involve informal communication, individual initiative, and person to person coordination across environments.
Decision-making in Saudi sport is shaped by:
family-centred authority, especially for youth and female athletes
hierarchical organisational structures, where approvals move upward
emerging sport-medicine systems, where confidentiality and privacy protections are still being formalised
These realities are documented directly in these example medical‑questionnaire systems:
Guardian identity and relationship are required at youth level because families are the primary decision-makers.
Confidentiality statements are essential because athletes may fear being removed from training or competition selection if they disclose injuries or mental‑health concerns.
Bilingual clarity and modest, factual language are required because tone influences whether families perceive environments as safe.
PDPL governs the handling of medical and biometric data, requiring explicit consent and secure processing.
These are operational facts embedded in SCFHS, SAFF, PDPL, and SOPC practice.
In this context, trust in Saudi sport must be engineered deliberately through systems, communication, and behaviour. It cannot be assumed, because the participation ecosystem is still forming and many families are navigating organised sport, public exercise, and medical screening for the first time.
Women and girls’ access to sport and exercise due to concealment of injury or illness, and family perceptions may mean pressure or sport and activity stops.
uncertainty around approvals,
communication caution,
family reassurance,
Key insight: Trust affects not only participation, but medical disclosure, rehabilitation continuity, communication flow and long-term progression.
Three layers of trust are therefore structurally relevant:
Institutional trust, confidence that federations, clubs, and medical teams act within clear governance and PDPL‑compliant frameworks.
Relationships and l trust, confidence that team members communicate respectfully, protect privacy, and act with cultural intelligence.
Family trust, confidence that environments are safe, appropriate, and aligned with household expectations.
These layers are not cultural stereotypes; they are documented system requirements visible in
SCFHS sports‑medicine guidance
SAFF safeguarding rules
PDPL privacy obligations
medical‑questionnaire architecture
the operational behaviour of clubs and federations in hierarchical systems
In Saudi Arabia, trust becomes infrastructure, is at the forefront. It must be built through:
clear safeguarding pathways
female-led environments where appropriate
Consistent medical processes
confidentiality protections
family engagement
bilingual clarity
consistent behaviour from team members
These are structural mechanisms, not cultural assumptions. Trust reduces friction and lowers governance cost when built deliberately. In Saudi Arabia, trust must be constructed through systems, especially for women and girls. Safeguarding, confidentiality, and family engagement are structural requirements.
The strategic implication is clear: Saudi Arabia is building a participation ecosystem where trust is not inherited through long-standing civic institutions, but developed through system design, local environments, and family confidence over time..
3.1 Volunteering, Professionalisation & Participation Delivery
Nordic participation systems are heavily supported by volunteer labour. Parents coach teams, organise competitions, manage local clubs, and contribute to facility operations. This reduces operating costs, strengthens local identity, and creates intergenerational patterns, with children growing up inside community sport environments shaped by family participation.
Volunteerism is therefore not a secondary feature of Nordic sport systems; it is part of the underlying participation infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia operates within different social, economic, and institutional conditions. Large-scale volunteer-driven club systems did not evolve historically in the same way, and the Kingdom’s current sport transformation is occurring alongside rapid professionalisation across governance, coaching, healthcare, and performance environments.
Rather than relying primarily on volunteer capacity, Saudi Arabia is increasingly positioned to build participation and athlete pathways through professionalised delivery models supported by:
school-based sport programmes
university engagement
regional activation initiatives
community participation programmes
qualified coaching and medical staff
Sports for All (SFA) participation structures
In this context, professionalisation may become a strategic advantage rather than a participation deficit.
Where safeguarding, rehabilitation, coaching, and workforce structures are still developing simultaneously, professionalised systems can provide greater consistency, accountability, and clearer pathways across both participation and athlete development environments.
This is particularly relevant in environments where many participants may be entering organised sport for the first time and require higher levels of institutional support, communication, and guidance.
Rather than separating community participation from professional sport structures, the Kingdom can develop integrated pathways where coaching, sports medicine, rehabilitation, participation delivery, and athlete development are increasingly recognised as skilled professions contributing to both public health and national capability development.
Saudi Arabia may stabilise participation ecosystems through professional capability rather than volunteer density
Community involvement can still be built through schools and SFA programmes.
3.2 Taxation Model & Public Funding Logic
Nordic sport is sustained by predictable taxation models. Sweden’s municipal taxes fund facilities and youth sport. Denmark’s state and municipal budgets support associations. Public health and sport are integrated in policy. This creates stable club ecosystems, low cost for families, and planning horizons.
Saudi Arabia’s fiscal model is different, but the logic is transferable: national investment can support federations; regional investment can support facilities and participation; SFA can drive activation and movement literacy; and the Ministry of Health can integrate prevention.
Nordic systems rely on predictable municipal taxation.
Saudi Arabia can build a functional equivalent through national and regional investment.
The logic is transferable even if the fiscal model is not.
3.3 Public-Health Philosophy: Movement as Prevention
In Sweden and Denmark, movement is not “sport.” It is public health. Children walk to school. Families cycle. Outdoor play is normal. Municipalities design for movement. Healthcare systems promote prevention.
Saudi Arabia is now moving in this direction through SFA, Quality of Life, the Sports Boulevard, NEOM, and school PE reform. But the baseline is different: adults with no movement history, women and girls entering sport for the first time, and public spaces.
Nordic movement culture is public-health driven, not performance-driven.
Saudi Arabia must treat movement literacy as health infrastructure.
The baseline is different, so sequencing matters.
3.4 Education Integration & Lifelong Sport
Nordic systems integrate movement into early childhood education, primary and secondary schools, universities, and lifelong learning frameworks. This produces movement habits, physical literacy, and long-term participation.
Saudi Arabia is beginning this journey with new PE curricula, female PE teachers, and school–club pathways. But the gap is generational. A 30-year-old catching a ball for the first time in 2016 is not an anecdote, it is a population-level reality.
Nordic systems embed movement across the entire education lifecycle.
Saudi Arabia must build movement literacy from the ground up.
Lifelong sport begins with childhood play, historically absent in the Kingdom. This has been addressed locally with play areas in residential settings, parks and fun facilities
3.5 Women, Girls & Family Involvement
Nordic countries normalised women’s participation in sport over several decades, supported by long-standing civic associations, gender‑equality legislation, and predictable public‑health systems. Saudi Arabia is expanding women’s and girls’ participation within a much shorter timeframe, following major policy reforms, new public spaces, and the rapid growth of school, club, and community sport.
This is not a cultural comparison; it is a structural distinction. Saudi Arabia is building a women’s sport ecosystem in real time, and participation decisions are shaped by family authority, safety expectations, and the availability of female-led environments. These requirements are visible in these medical‑questionnaire systems, where guardian identity, bilingual clarity, modest language, and confidentiality statements are essential for families to feel secure.
In this context, family involvement is structural. Families play a central role in decisions about training, medical care, travel, and competition, especially for minors and for women and girls entering organised sport for the first time. Trust, safety, and clarity are therefore foundational components of participation pathways.
Women’s participation in Saudi Arabia is new and generationally compressed, expanding within a single decade.
Family trust is a structural requirement, shaping decisions about access, safety, and continuity.
Female workforce development, from coaching to medical roles to leadership and governance, is essential for long‑term sustainability and progression “from pathway to boardroom.”
4.0 Female Athlete Participation & Federation Behaviour
As female participation entered the federation ecosystem, this required structural and behavioural changes across governance, operations, communication, and delivery environments.
This included:
governance adapting in real time,
cultural negotiation,
family integration,
hijab approvals,
confidentiality concerns,
female coaching recruitment,
travel considerations,
safeguarding and protection mechanisms,
and increasingly cautious communication processes.
Because women’s participation historically operated within constrained and low-visibility environments, aspects of this legacy continue to influence governance behaviour, communication patterns, operational confidence, and institutional development across parts of the ecosystem today.
3.7 Social Cohesion: The Hidden Outcome
Nordic sport systems generate social cohesion because movement is embedded in community life. Clubs function as civic institutions where families gather, children grow up, and shared identities form. Participation becomes a collective experience rather than an individual activity, reinforcing local belonging and family participation.
Saudi Arabia can build equivalents, but through different mechanisms. The Kingdom’s social cohesion will not emerge from inherited civic associations; it will emerge from purpose‑built public spaces, SFA community programmes, regional hubs, school–club partnerships, and movement environments designed for local realities.
These realities include:
women and girls who wear abayas, niqab, or hijab
40°C+ temperatures
sandstorms, high winds, and seasonal weather variation
high community usage of public spaces
the need for culturally appropriate, climate‑smart design (outdoor gyms and athletic tracks)
In this context, sport becomes not only performance infrastructure but nation‑building infrastructure - a way to create shared experiences, strengthen community identity, and support Vision 2030’s social‑cohesion objectives.
Saudi Arabia can build functional equivalents through SFA programmes and climate‑smart, culturally intelligent public‑space design, ensuring environments are fit‑for‑purpose for women and girls and resilient to regional climate conditions.