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

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is on the brink of a landmark move that could redraw the map of Saudi club ownership – with Al-Hilal at the heart of it.

The chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, which controls a 70% stake in Al-Hilal, is expected to push for full ownership of the Riyadh powerhouse, according to prominent Saudi media figure Waleed Al-Farraj. If he follows through, Al-Hilal would become the first major Saudi club to move entirely into private hands.

This would not be a minor adjustment. It would be a clean break.

Prince Al-Waleed secured his 70% share last April under a binding agreement between Kingdom Holding Company and the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). That deal already marked Al-Hilal out as a special case in the government-backed sports investment project. Now the next step could be even more dramatic.

Al-Farraj revealed the expected move on his programme “Rotana Sport with Waleed”, broadcast on the “Rotana Khalijia” channel – a network originally owned by Prince Al-Waleed himself. The message, and the platform, underline how serious this development is inside Saudi football circles.

The timing is no coincidence. On Wednesday, the Saudi Ministry of Sport confirmed it had transferred its remaining 25% stakes in each of the four flagship clubs – Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli – to PIF. That shift concentrated state ownership, tightening the PIF’s grip on the elite of the Saudi game.

And yet Al-Hilal are already starting to step away.

If Prince Al-Waleed raises his stake from 70% to 100%, Al-Hilal would become the only one of the four giants to sit completely outside the PIF umbrella. A different model. A different power structure. A different future.

For now, Al-Hilal stand alone on that path. The expectation, though, is that Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli could follow in some form in the coming period, as Saudi football leans further into a new era of privatization and heavyweight investment.

Al-Hilal may simply be the first to jump. The real question is how many will follow – and how quickly.