As PIF owns four clubs, Al-Jadaan to Maaal: It is likely that ‎ownership of other clubs will be transferred to PIF

Muhammad Al-Jadaan, Minister of Finance, said in a statement to the newspaper (Mal) that the other clubs, when allocated, will most likely be transferred to the Public Investment Fund, indicating that a decision has not been taken yet regarding that, indicating that these clubs will be evaluated later.

This comes after the decision to transfer ownership of 4 clubs (Al-Hilal, Al-Nasr, Al-Ahly, and Al-Ittihad) to the Public Investment Fund, and Al-Qadisiyah to the Saudi “A Ramco.”

Al-Jadaan said in his response to a question from Mal newspaper on the sidelines of the press conference for the state’s general budget for the fiscal year 2024 today, Wednesday: The revenues of the 4 major clubs in the Saudi League (Al-Hilal, Al-Nasr, Al-Ahly, and Al-Ittihad), whose ownership was transferred to the Investment Fund “The general public will return to the fund and not to the budget.”

We point out that in June 2023, Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, launched the investment and privatization project for sports clubs, after the completion of the executive procedures for the first phase, in order to achieve the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 in the sports sector, which aims to build an effective sports sector. By stimulating and enabling the private sector to contribute to the development of the sports sector, in order to achieve the desired excellence for national teams, sports clubs, and practitioners at all levels.

At the current stage, the project includes two main tracks: The first is to approve the investment of major companies and development agencies in sports clubs, in exchange for transferring ownership of the clubs to them, and the second is to offer a number of sports clubs for privatization starting in the last quarter of 2023 AD.

The project is based on three strategic objectives, which are to create quality opportunities and an attractive environment for investment in the sports sector to achieve a sustainable sports economy, and to raise the level of professionalism and administrative and financial governance in sports clubs, in addition to raising the level of clubs and developing their infrastructure to provide the best services to sports fans which reflects positively on improving the audience experience

The transfer and allocation of clubs in general aims to achieve qualitative leaps in various sports in the Kingdom by the year 2030, to create a distinguished generation in sports at the regional and global levels, in addition to developing the game of football and its competitions in particular, to bring the Saudi League to the list of the best (10) leagues. In the world, and increasing the revenues of the Saudi Professional League from 450 million riyals to more than 1.8 billion riyals annually, in addition to raising the market value of the Saudi Professional League from 3 billion to more than 8 billion riyals.

It is noteworthy that Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, Minister of Sports, announced earlier the transfer of ownership of 4 clubs to the Public Investment Fund, namely Al-Ittihad, Al-Nasr, Al-Hilal and Al-Ahly.