By Donna Abu-Nasr

updated 2:38 p.m. ET May 8, 2008

JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia - The players bound into the gym, shedding their long black cloaks and veils to take to the basketball court. Up this night: Jeddah United against the Jaguars, as 30 women spectators hoot and holler from the stands.

Such is the start of women's sports in Saudi Arabia — a Muslim country so conservative that the fledgling women's sports leagues and teams that have begun to appear here in recent years remain almost entirely underground, far from public scrutiny or religious clerics' eyes.

"One day we're going to look back on such events and hopefully say, 'Wow, we've gone a long way,'" said Lina al-Maeena, the founder and team captain of Jeddah United, the team playing last week's games.

"Future generations won't have to start from zero."

It is a far cry from Title IX, the landmark 1972 federal U.S. anti-discrimination law that spearheaded women's equal treatment in sports at a time when the women's rights movement was gathering steam across the West.

In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive or vote and have few legal rights. The restrictions stem from the stern version of Islam the kingdom follows. Many conservative adherents believe that women's emancipation will lead to decadence and a dissipation of Islamic values.

For them, keeping the sexes segregated and maintaining male guardianship over women is not enough. They want to ban anything that might — in their eyes — lead to more freedoms for women, such as sports.

Because of that, women's leagues and physical education classes in government girls' schools are banned, women's games and marathons canceled when the powerful clergy get wind of them and female athletes are not allowed to participate in the Olympics.

Despite such obstacles, Saudi women have quietly been forming soccer, basketball, volleyball and other teams throughout the kingdom in the past few years. Some operate under schools and universities, others under the umbrella of charities. A few, like Jeddah United and the Jaguars, are independent.

The teams have none of the privileges that men's leagues — which have existed here for decades — enjoy.

They're not part of the General Presidency for Youth Welfare, the federation that cares for sports. They find it hard to get corporate sponsorship. They don't have proper facilities and courts where they can train, or even certified referees. And they are not allowed to compete in international competitions.

And while men's games are broadcast on TV and take place in huge stadiums, women rarely advertise their games — or even talk openly about them — for fear the clergy will stop them. That makes it difficult for them to reach spectators from outside their immediate circle of friends and family. And teams in one city often do not know whether teams in other cities exist.

In March, Sheik Abdul-Aziz Al-Sheik, the kingdom's mufti, or senior cleric, told Okaz newspaper he had ordered a university in the capital, Riyadh, to cancel a women's marathon. Last year, clerics stopped a women's soccer game in the Eastern Province from taking place.

Abdul-Kareem al-Khodair, a professor at Imam University, wrote on al-Muslim Web site that introducing physical education classes for girls at government schools would be tantamount to "following in the devil's footsteps."

That attitude toward sports is one reason why the rate of obesity among Saudi women is higher than men's, health care officials say. About 52 percent of Saudi men and 66 percent of women are either obese or overweight, according to Saudi press reports.

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