Prince Al-Waleed's Move for Al-Hilal Ownership

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is poised to make a landmark move that could redraw the map of Saudi club ownership – and Al-Hilal are at the heart of it.

The chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, which currently controls 70% of Al-Hilal, is expected to push for full ownership of the Riyadh powerhouse, according to prominent Saudi media figure Waleed Al-Farraj. If that request is approved, Al-Hilal would become the first major Saudi popular club to shift entirely into private hands.

This is not a vague idea. Prince Al-Waleed secured his 70% stake in April under a binding contract between Kingdom Holding Company and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). Now, with the landscape changing again at the top of Saudi football, the timing of his next step feels deliberate.

The latest trigger came on Wednesday, when the Saudi Ministry of Sport confirmed it had transferred its remaining 25% stakes in the country’s four flagship clubs – Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli – to PIF. That move concentrated state-related ownership under one umbrella and cleared the way for sharper distinctions between public and private control.

Al-Farraj’s revelation did not come from the margins. He delivered it on his own programme, “Rotana Sport with Waleed”, broadcast on the “Rotana Khalijia” channel – a network originally owned by Prince Al-Waleed himself. In Saudi football circles, that context gives his words an extra edge. This sounded less like idle speculation and more like a signal.

If the plan goes through, Al-Hilal would step out from under the PIF structure entirely, becoming the only one of the four giants to do so at this stage. The other three – Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli – remain under the PIF umbrella for now, though expectations are already building that they too could move toward greater private involvement in the coming period.

For Al-Hilal, serial champions and regional heavyweights, full private ownership under one of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful investors would mark a new era. The question now is not whether change is coming to Saudi football’s elite, but which club will be the next to follow.