2025 Islamic Solidarity Games to champion sustainability in Riyadh

Jointly by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF), the Islamic Solidarity Games have harnessed sport as a tool to foster collaboration between countries from across the world every four years since it was first launched in Mecca in 2005.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary on a yet-to-be-decided date next year, the quadrennial sporting festival will strive to champion sustainability, something that ISSA Secretary General Nasser Majali says is fundamental to organisers.

“This world of major sports events is a beautiful one – the Games bring joy and they bring excellence in competition to a country but importantly, we need to always think about sustainability too,” Majali told the Saudi Arabian news channel Al Arabiya. “We are trying to create a blueprint that will make it more affordable for future hosts. We have worked hard to keep our Games at a cost-effective level, but one that can still provide the quality of competition, as well as safety and comfort for athletes and fans.”

“The number of countries putting themselves forward to host these sort of multi-sport Games has been shrinking because it is often hard to see the return on investment. It’s our role to help demonstrate the direct positive effect of the Games and their legacy on the host city and nation,” said Majali. “ISSA is a human-centric organization, and the Islamic Solidarity Games is a key platform from which we can help develop sustainable sports policies across our member countries.”

Saudi Arabia has played an important role in the history of the ISSA, which incidentally celebrates its 40th anniversary next year. For Majali, more established sporting nations like Saudi Arabia have a responsibility to help the development of countries without an existing elite infrastructure.

“Of course, these ‘more developed’ nations want to assist through competency and capacity building for hosting events or for athlete development. This has been the role of ISSA since its inception – to bring the kind of ‘big brother, younger brother’ model,” he says. “We want to assist everybody that is less capable right now so that they become more capable in the future. Everybody has to start somewhere.”

The 2025 Islamic Solidarity Games in Riyadh is just the start of many events to come in Saudi Arabia over the next decade. The headline events will no doubt be the Riyadh 2034 Asian Games and the men’s 2034 FIFA World Cup which was awarded to Saudi Arabia in 2023.

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