Aussie veteran Sally Fitzgibbons, who hopes the move to the UAE, which has hosted other female sports, increases attention on the matter and “creates change”. The UAE’s penal code is ruled by divine revelations coded into Sharia Law that makes homosexuality illegal, with fines and imprisonment for as little as gay kissing in public. That moved Wright’s brother, Mikey, to launch into the WSL, declaring tit was taking the tour to a location where his sister, who is married to Lilli Baker, is “at risk”. Fitzgibbons, who was bundled out in the elimination rounds in the season-opening event in Hawaii last weekend won by Wright, said other female sports, boasting gay players, had been played in Abu Dhabi without issue, but every event was a positive towards possible change. “It’s something which is definitely beyond my jurisdiction, of how the powers to be decide on these things,” she said. “I think culturally, there will always be differences, but as surfers, I guess, it’s not really in our hands, then that all boils back to the sense of what it’s going to be like. “But I think watching female sports move into the space within the WTA (tennis) and obviously football federations, and obviously there’s the rugby (sevens) there too, no shortage of women’s sport in the area. And hopefully that brings you attention on the right reasons and creates the change.” While Fitzgibbons saw a positive in the move to a man-made wave pool for landlocked countries to still host the Olympics, she was concerned about the capacity for everyone to compete equally, and she sensed wave-pool surfing could become “elitist”. “There’s a lot of barriers. It can become really elitist too because of the nature of costs trying to practise in the pool, so there’s definitely some barriers, pros and cons,” she said. “But as a surf fan, and first and foremost, I just have a crack at it. I’m not too sure. I don’t place a lot of expectations on myself to be a specialist, but I definitely have fun.” Fitzgibbons also said the consistency of conditions could create wave-pool specialists. “I just can’t stop thinking that there’s going to be an amazing field of specialists that come out of learning in wave pools, and it will become almost more gymnastic, like the things that they’re going to learn how to do, and the equipment they’ll ride, and the amount of reps they’ll have in the pool,” she said. “I think that’ll transform that side of the sport. “I think where it sits now, at times it has that sterile nature because it’s trying to create predictability and all the opposite things to the ocean. “It’s a lot of money spent in development, so the promotional aspects and competing in it, we’ll definitely have a go and it is fun for the surfer to try and work out, like playing a video game, nearly, of a wave. “And then the interest will just kind of go from there.”