Why Al-Ittihad Fans Are Protesting With #IttihadDeservesBetter
Fans of Al-Ittihad, one of Saudi Arabia's most storied football clubs, turned a matchday into a public reckoning. They draped the stands in yellow-and-black banners carrying Arabic messages demanding accountability, shared images of empty seats on social media, and pushed the hashtag #IttihadDeservesBetter into wide circulation. The protest is not about a single bad result. It is about what happens when a century-old club built on community loyalty is absorbed by a sovereign wealth fund and run like a portfolio.
Who Al-Ittihad are
Founded in Jeddah in 1927, Al-Ittihad are among the oldest and most decorated clubs in Saudi football. They have won the Saudi Pro League fourteen times and lifted the AFC Champions League, accomplishments that earned them a following across the Hejaz and beyond. Their yellow-and-black colours and their nickname, "Al-Hezb Al-Namouthaji" ("The Team of the Century"), reflect a self-image rooted in history rather than in any recent spending spree. For supporters, the club is not a brand to be optimised; it is an inheritance.
That inheritance now sits inside a very different structure. Since 2023 Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) has owned and restructured four flagship clubs -- Al-Ittihad, Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, and Al-Ahli -- as part of the kingdom's broader sportswashing and diversification push. The four clubs were handed elite facilities, marquee signings, and global broadcasting exposure. Al-Ittihad brought in stars such as Karim Benzema and N'Golo Kante. The model, in other words, is sovereign capital applied to sport.
What the protest is about
The banners and #IttihadDeservesBetter complaints cluster around a familiar set of grievances for PIF-era clubs. Supporters point to administrative turbulence: frequent management reshuffles, delayed transfers, and liquidity problems that have left squad planning lurching from window to window. They argue that the football department lacks the professional footballing competence that sovereign money cannot substitute for. They want the coach's requests honoured, the youth academy reformed, the technical staff restructured, and the club's leadership replaced with experienced football executives rather than appointees who rotate in and out.
The empty-seat imagery matters. The PIF project has been sold as a fan-boosting spectacle, but Al-Ittihad's attendances have not matched the stadium's capacity or the wage bill. For supporters, that gap is evidence that the club's leadership has lost touch with the people who fill the terraces. Money can buy stars; it cannot automatically buy loyalty.
Sovereign capital meets fan culture
The deeper question #IttihadDeservesBetter raises is whether fan culture and sovereign capital can coexist. Football clubs are unusual institutions: they are businesses, but they are also social trusts. Supporters expect continuity, voice, and a footballing logic that outranks quarterly financial decisions. PIF ownership treats clubs as national assets within Vision 2030, instruments for global visibility and tourism. When those two logics collide -- a coach sacked mid-season for non-footballing reasons, a signing made for marketing value, a board shaped by political appointment rather than football pedigree -- fans feel the club slipping away from them.
Al-Ittihad's protest is therefore less a tantrum about form and more a manifesto about ownership. It echoes unease seen at other state-backed clubs worldwide, where supporters warn that the institution's identity is being laundered into something more marketable.
The limits of state-led football investment
The PIF model has transformed the Saudi Pro League's global visibility, but #IttihadDeservesBetter exposes its floor. Elite sport is not a pure listing on an exchange. It is a living institution with members, memories, and a culture of grievance. Where sovereign money writes cheques but does not listen, the result can be a stadium half-empty even as wage bills balloon.
What Al-Ittihad's supporters are asking for is, in the end, modest: a board that understands football, an academy that produces the next generation, and a plan that lasts longer than a transfer window. Whether the PIF's sporting project can absorb such demands -- or whether it will keep treating clubs as portfolio companies -- will shape not only Al-Ittihad's future, but the credibility of Saudi sportswashing itself.