Camel Jumping is the traditional sport of Yemen. Literally, one must jump over camels — and it’s not just one camel we’re discussing here, it’s a row of camels. The one who leaps over the most camels is the winner. Local celebrations along the Tihama coastal plain aren’t complete without it, and it is the men of the Zaraniq (al-Zaraneeq) tribe who have kept the sport alive as modernization has pushed it towards the margins.

Football is by far the most popular sport in the country today. It is run by the Yemen Football Association, founded in 1962 and a member of both FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation since 1980, which administers the Yemen national football team as well as the Yemeni League. Yemen hosted the 2010 Gulf Cup of Nations in Aden and Abyan, but the years since have been dominated by civil war — the national league was abandoned in 2014, sports halls and stadiums were damaged or repurposed, and the national team has been unable to play competitive home matches inside the country, using neutral venues in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia instead.

That picture began to change in 2026. A full home-and-away national league returned on 30 April 2026 for the first time since 2014, with 14 clubs playing across seven venues in Sanaa, Marib, Seiyun, Ibb, Mukalla, Mudiyah and Hodeidah, drawing large crowds from areas held by opposing sides of the conflict.

The Republic Cup was revived alongside it with 64 entrants, the first national knockout competition since 2017. Weeks later, on 4 June 2026, the national team qualified for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, only the second time in its history that unified Yemen has reached a major finals.

Camel Jumping in YemenCamel Jumping in Yemen. Still image from the Camel Jumping Video

Away from football, Yemen’s strongest individual sports have been the martial arts — taekwondo, judo, karate and wushu account for both of the country’s Asian Games medals and its best Olympic result. Yemen has competed at every Summer Olympic Games since 1992 but has yet to win a medal, its athletes generally entering through universality places rather than direct qualification. The mountainous interior supports trekking, hiking and climbing — the Sarawat (Haraz) Mountains and Jabal an-Nabi Shu’ayb, at 3,666m the highest peak on the Arabian Peninsula, are the best-known destinations. The Red Sea and Arabian Sea coastlines and the island of Socotra offer diving, snorkelling, sailing, kitesurfing and surfing, though almost all of it is recreational rather than competitive.

Women’s sport has a longer history than is often assumed, particularly in the south, where Aden had women competing in volleyball, basketball, athletics, table tennis and chess through the 1970s and 1980s. That base has largely disappeared, and Yemen has no active senior women’s national football team, but a handful of women still represent the country internationally — and several Yemeni women now play professional football in Saudi Arabia.

Below are details of sports, sporting events and sports people related to Yemen. Is there something missing? If you know of something that should be listed here, please let us know.

Popular sports of Yemen

  • football (soccer), boxing, athletics, judo, taekwondo, karate and other martial arts, wushu, camel racing, mountain climbing, surfing and diving

Traditional or Regional Sports

  • Camel Jumping — the objective is to cleanly clear a group of camels standing side by side, with the winner the man who clears the most. It is practised almost exclusively by the Zaraniq tribe of the Tihama plain, in villages south-east of Hodeidah and near Bajil and Zabid, at weddings and at al-Khamis, the festival marking the end of the palm season. Competitors tuck their robes — traditionally light blue — around their waists, take a short sprint and launch themselves over the animals. Only men take part.
  • Camel racing — raced competitively as well as ceremonially, and the source of one of Yemen’s rare recent international podiums (see below).
  • Traditional tribal dancing, with its high kicks and leaps, is closely related to camel jumping and is where many jumpers first develop their spring.

Yemen Sporting Success

  • Yemen qualified for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup on 4 June 2026, beating Lebanon 2–0 at the Grand Hamad Stadium in Doha with both goals scored by Nasser Al-Gahwashi. They topped third-round qualifying Group B unbeaten with 14 points from six matches (four wins, two draws, 20 goals for and one against), including a 9–0 win over Brunei and a 7–1 win over Bhutan. It is only the second time unified Yemen has reached the finals of the tournament.
  • Yemen made their AFC Asian Cup debut at the 2019 tournament in the UAE, having come through qualifying for the first time in the country’s history.
  • Yemen recorded their first ever win at the Arabian Gulf Cup on 28 December 2024, beating Bahrain 2–1 at the 26th edition of the tournament in Kuwait — their only victory in 11 appearances at that point.
  • Yemen hosted the 2010 Gulf Cup of Nations, the first major international football tournament staged in the country.
  • A full national league returned in 2026 for the first time since 2014, with 14 clubs playing home and away across seven venues — widely seen as one of the most significant signs of normal life resuming in Yemen.
  • Yemen’s only appearance at a FIFA tournament came at the 2003 FIFA U-17 World Championship in Finland.
  • Yemen’s under-17 side qualified for the 2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup finals in Saudi Arabia, beating the UAE 3–2 in the group stage before going out.
  • Akram Al-Noor won bronze in taekwondo (finweight) at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, and Naji Al-Ashwal won bronze in wushu (sanshou 52kg) at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha — the only two Asian Games medals Yemen has ever won.
  • Yemen won two bronze medals at the 2025 Asian Youth Games in Bahrain: Younes Nasser in judo (boys’ −50kg) and Imaan Salem in camel racing (girls’ 500m).
  • Taekwondo fighter Tameem Al-Kubati reached the quarter-finals of the men’s 58kg at the London 2012 Olympics, officially classified ninth — the best Olympic performance by any Yemeni athlete.

Great athletes from Yemen

  • Naseem Hamed (boxing) — born in Sheffield, England to Yemeni parents from Zabid, “Prince” Naseem held the WBO featherweight title from 1995 to 2000 along with the IBF and WBC belts, and was the lineal champion from 1998 to 2001, finishing 36–1 with 31 knockouts. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2015.
  • Ali Al-Nono (football) — Yemen’s all-time leading scorer with 30 goals in 65 internationals, a former national team captain, and the all-time leading scorer in the history of the Yemeni League with 163 goals between 1999 and 2014.
  • Alaa Al-Sasi (football) — Yemen’s most capped player with 84 appearances between 2006 and 2019.
  • Abdulwasea Al-Matari (football) — attacking midfielder and captain of the side that qualified for the 2027 Asian Cup.
  • Nasser Al-Gahwashi (football) — Yemen’s second-highest international scorer, who scored both goals in the win over Lebanon that took Yemen to the 2027 Asian Cup.
  • Tameem Al-Kubati (taekwondo) — Olympic quarter-finalist at London 2012, Pan Arab Games gold medallist in 2011 and Asian Championships bronze medallist in 2008.
  • Akram Al-Noor (taekwondo) — 2002 Asian Games bronze medallist, who qualified for the Athens 2004 Olympics aged 16 and carried the flag at the opening ceremony.
  • Naji Al-Ashwal (wushu) — bronze medallist in sanshou at the 2006 Asian Games.
  • Ali Khousrof (judo) — a two-time Olympian at Beijing 2008 and London 2012 and a six-time world championships competitor, Yemen’s flagbearer at the 2016 Rio Games. He was shot in the abdomen during the 2011 uprising and was back competing the following year.
  • Fatima Sulaiman Dahman (athletics) — sprinter who was one of the first Yemeni women to compete at the Olympic Games, at London 2012, and who still holds the national women’s 100m record.
  • Nooran Ba-Matraf (swimming) — two-time Olympian (Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020) and holder of essentially every Yemeni women’s swimming record.
  • Mokhtar Al-Yamani (swimming) — Tokyo 2020 Olympian and holder of most of Yemen’s men’s national records.
  • Yasameen Al-Raimi (shooting) — competed in the 10m air pistol at both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, and was Yemen’s flagbearer at the Tokyo Games.

Yemen Sports trivia

  • Both Yemens went to the same Olympic Games only once. North Yemen (the Yemen Arab Republic) competed in 1984 and 1988, while South Yemen (the PDRY) appeared only at Seoul in 1988, sending five athletes in athletics and boxing. The two countries unified in 1990 and first competed as a single team at Barcelona 1992.
  • Yemen has not played a competitive home international in football inside the country since the war began, using neutral venues in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia instead.
  • Yemen’s highest FIFA world ranking was 90th, reached in 1993 shortly after unification; their lowest was 186th in February 2014, and they were ranked 145th in the July 2026 list.
  • Participation in organised sport in Yemen is estimated to have fallen by around 88% because of the civil war, with stadiums and sports halls used as weapons stores, training camps and burial grounds.
  • Yemen’s National Olympic Committee operates on roughly US$370,000 a year, almost all of it international funding, with no government support.
  • Yemen’s Olympic swimmers have trained in a pool in Aden measuring around 11m by 3m.
  • No Yemeni club has played in an AFC club competition since 2015, the country having remained outside the AFC club licensing system. Al-Shaab Hadramaut will end the drought at regional level in the AGCFF Gulf Club Champions League, which runs from October 2026 to April 2027.
  • Naseem Hamed’s career was dramatised in the feature film Giant, directed by Rowan Athale, which premiered at the London Film Festival in October 2025 and went on general release in the UK in January 2026, with Amir El-Masry playing the boxer and Pierce Brosnan as his trainer Brendan Ingle. Hamed, who had no involvement in the production, has said the film is fictionalised.
  • The island of Socotra, some 350km off the Yemeni mainland, is regarded as one of the least-visited surfing, diving and kitesurfing destinations in the world.
  • Yemen sent just four athletes to the Paris 2024 Olympics — sprinter Samer Al-Yafaee, judoka Hesham Makabr, shooter Yasameen Al-Raimi and swimmer Yusuf Nasser — all through universality places rather than direct qualification. Al-Yafaee carried the flag.
  • Yemen has never appeared at a Winter Olympic Games.
  • The Yemeni national team is coached by the Algerian Noureddine Ould Ali, appointed in February 2024, and the Yemen Football Association has been led by Ahmed Saleh Al-Eissi since 2006.

Yemen at major events

  • Yemen at the Summer Olympics — every Games since 1992, no medals. Also South Yemen and North Yemen at the Olympics.
  • Yemen at the Paralympic Games — 1992, then a 28-year gap before Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.
  • Yemen at the Asian Games — since 1990, with two bronze medals (2002 and 2006). Yemen is entered for the 2026 Games in Aichi-Nagoya.
  • Yemen at the AFC Asian Cup — 2019, and qualified for 2027.
  • Yemen at the Arabian Gulf Cup — 12 appearances, never past the group stage.
  • Yemen at the Islamic Solidarity Games — six athletes in fencing, karate and wushu at Riyadh 2025.
  • Yemen at the Asian Youth Games, the Arab Games and the World Athletics and World Aquatics Championships.

Past sporting events hosted in Yemen

  • 2010 — Gulf Cup of Nations in Aden and Abyan (football)
  • 2020 — the eight-team national football finals in Seiyun, the first countrywide competition since the war began, won by Al-Shaab Hadramaut in front of a reported 40,000 spectators
  • 2026 — the return of the Yemeni League, played across Sanaa, Marib, Seiyun, Ibb, Mukalla, Mudiyah and Hodeidah, and the revival of the Republic Cup with 64 entrants

Upcoming sporting events in Yemen

  • Continuation of the 2025–26 Yemeni League, which had completed 12 of its 26 rounds by late August 2026 with Al-Shaab Hadramaut leading on 29 points, and the later rounds of the Republic Cup — both subject to security conditions.

Upcoming events involving Yemen

  • 27th Arabian Gulf Cup, Jeddah, 23 September – 6 October 2026 — Yemen play the UAE (24 September), Qatar (27 September) and Bahrain (30 September) in Group B.
  • 2026 Asian Games, Aichi-Nagoya, 19 September – 4 October 2026.
  • 2027 AFC Asian Cup, Saudi Arabia, 7 January – 5 February 2027 — Yemen are in Group E with Korea Republic, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

Annual sporting events held in Yemen

  • Yemeni League — the national football championship, relaunched in 2026 with 14 clubs in a home-and-away format.
  • Republic Cup — the national football knockout cup competition, revived in 2026 with 64 teams after a gap since 2017. Historically known as the Yemeni President Cup.
  • Regional and city competitions such as the Aden Capital Cup, which continued through the years when there was no national league.
  • Camel jumping contests — held informally at weddings and village festivals in the Tihama region rather than on a fixed calendar.

Sporting Facilities in Yemen

  • Althawra Sports City Stadium (Ali Muhsen Al-Muraisi Stadium), Sana’a — a multi-purpose stadium of about 25,000 capacity and the official home ground of the national football team, though it has not staged a competitive international for years.
  • 22 May Stadium, Aden — a multi-purpose stadium, and a venue for the 2010 Gulf Cup.
  • Seiyun Stadium, Seiyun, and Baradem Stadium, Mukalla — league venues in the Hadhramaut region.
  • Al-Tharafi Stadium, Sanaa; Marib Stadium, Marib; Fahman Stadium, Mudiyah; and Al-Olofi Stadium, Hodeidah — further venues used for the 2026 league season.
  • Al-Habishi Stadium, Aden — used by the national team for its September 2026 training camp, a rare senior camp held inside the country.
  • Note that many Yemeni sports facilities have been damaged or destroyed during the civil war and remain in poor condition or unusable, and that a number of sports halls were converted to military use.