Al-Khulood Club
Saudi professional football club from Ar Rass in the Qassim region, in the Saudi Pro League since 2024 and, since July 2025, fully owned by US-based Harburg Group.
Industry: Professional football club | Location: Ar Rass, Saudi Arabia | Founded: 1970
About Al-Khulood Club
Al-Kholood Club, also written Al-Khulood, is a Saudi sports club based in Ar Rass in the Qassim region. According to Saudipedia and Wikipedia it was founded in 1970 (1390 AH), and a 1998 Al-Jazirah article adds that it was officially registered in 1395 AH. Its colours are red, green and white. For most of its history the club played in the lower divisions of Saudi football. Saudipedia lists entry into the Third Division in 2013, promotion to the Second Division in 2017 and promotion to the First Division in 2020. In the 2023-24 season it won promotion to the Saudi Pro League for the first time, and it played its first top-flight season in 2024-25, finishing ninth according to reported league tables. Saudipedia says the club has about 260 registered players and runs six sports, including futsal, wrestling, cycling, table tennis and badminton, together with adapted sports for people with special needs. On 24 July 2025 Al-Kholood was sold to Harburg Group, a US holding company led by businessman Ben Harburg, which took a 100 percent stake. Arab News reported that this made it the first Saudi Pro League club under fully overseas ownership. The sale formed part of Saudi Arabia's programme to privatise sports clubs; on the same occasion, Al Zulfi and Al Ansar passed to Saudi companies. Harburg also holds a stake in the Spanish second-division club Cadiz, and Arab News reported that he moved to Ar Rass to shape the club's plans on and off the pitch. Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Harburg saying the club would not be moved out of Ar Rass, and that it would expand geographically by building training bases instead. The newspaper also reported that the club launched a high-performance centre in Riyadh built to international standards. In the 2025-26 season the club, coached by Englishman Des Buckingham, reached the final of the King's Cup, eliminating Al-Ittihad in the semi-final on penalties (5-4) before facing Al Hilal in the final. Arab News described the run as putting a club from a small city on the global map. In the league, the 2025-26 campaign was its second consecutive season in the Pro League, with the club in the lower half of the table, according to Wikipedia. The club's ownership model, with a foreign group holding all of the shares in a top-flight Saudi side, is being watched as a test case for the wider privatisation of the kingdom's football clubs under the Roshn Saudi League.
Leadership
- Ben Harburg, Chairman and owner (through Harburg Group)
- Robert Eeinhorn, Group Chief Executive Officer, Harburg Group