13/06/2026
As the world watches another FIFA World Cup and debates Saudi Arabia’s future role in football, it’s worth remembering that the Kingdom’s football story didn’t begin with Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, or billion-dollar transfers.
It began nearly a century ago in a small room beside a telegraph office in Jeddah.
Football arrived in Saudi Arabia through sailors, merchants and workers moving through the Red Sea. In 1927, a group of young men founded Al-Ittihad, the Kingdom’s first football club. By the 1950s, oil workers were spreading the game across the Eastern Province, turning football from a coastal pastime into a national obsession.
Decades before the Saudi Pro League became a global headline, Saudi Arabia had already won three Asian Cups, qualified for four consecutive World Cups, and reached the Round of 16 in its very first appearance in 1994.
That tournament also produced one of the most iconic goals in World Cup history. Against Belgium, Saeed Al-Owairan picked up the ball inside his own half, dribbled through the defence and scored a goal that is still replayed more than thirty years later.
