Prince Al-Waleed's Move to Full Ownership of Al-Hilal

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is on the verge of a decision that could redraw the map of Saudi club football – and Al-Hilal are at the heart of it.

The chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, which controls the Riyadh giants, is expected to move to acquire full ownership of the club, according to prominent Saudi media figure Waleed Al-Farraj. That step would lift his stake from 70% to 100% and turn Al-Hilal into the first major Saudi popular club to be completely privately owned.

This is not a speculative sideshow. Prince Al-Waleed already took a commanding position last April, when Kingdom Holding Company bought 70% of Al-Hilal’s shares under a binding agreement with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). Now, with the landscape shifting again, he is poised to go all in.

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 heavyweights – Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli – to PIF. That move effectively concentrated state-linked ownership of the big clubs under a single umbrella.

And just as that structure seemed settled, the next twist arrived.

Al-Farraj revealed the expected push for full Al-Hilal ownership 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 and close this move appears.

If the deal is completed, Al-Hilal would step out from under the PIF umbrella entirely, becoming the only one of the four giants to do so. The other three – Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli – remain under PIF control for now, though they are widely expected to move toward similar private structures in the coming period.

For Al-Hilal, this would be more than a boardroom reshuffle. It would mark a historic shift: from state-linked backing to full private control under one of the kingdom’s most influential businessmen. And if the country’s most decorated club takes that leap first, how long before their great rivals follow?