21-year-old women's basketball coach leaves Gaza to train Saudi team
Dalia Nasr, the first Palestinian female professional basketball player in Saudi Arabia, will now train a Saudi team.
When Dalia Nasr, a 21-year-old Palestinian basketball player and coach at the Gaza Sports and Community Club, tried to leave the Gaza Strip in 2019 for a coaching course supervised by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Asia in the West Bank, she was stopped at the border. Nasr, then 19, was greatly saddened to miss her first chance to join a foreign tournament.
Two years later, Nasr had obtained a basketball arbitration certificate from the Palestinian Basketball Federation and registered with FIBA. The Saudi Flaij Basketball Club for Women reached out to her to train the Saudi women’s basketball team and she finally obtained a permit to travel for Saudi Arabia.
Nasr thus became the first Palestinian professional basketball player to practice this sport in Saudi Arabia.
Nasr told Al-Monitor, “The Flaij Club is very interested in women’s sports and supports its women’s basketball team both morally and financially.”
