Kings League MENA Split 1 Kicks Off in Riyadh Today with Expanded 10-Team Season

SEPTEMBER 18, 2026 – Kings League MENA Split 1 kicks off in Riyadh today, September 18, launching the regional competition’s first full-length league season with 10 teams representing fan communities from across the Arab world.

Running until October 30 at Cool Arena, Riyadh Boulevard, Split 1 expands Kings League MENA from the eight teams that competed in the inaugural Kings Cup MENA in 2025 to ten, with teams representing Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. The season will feature nine league matchdays followed by the quarter finals, before culminating in the Final Four on October 30.

Ahead of kickoff, members of the media were welcomed to Cool Arena on September 17 for a special venue tour, offering journalists a first look at the home of Kings League MENA Split 1 on the eve of the new season. The return to the Riyadh Boulevard venue places Kings League MENA at the centre of Saudi Arabia’s fast-growing sports and entertainment landscape and brings the competition back to the arena that hosted its breakthrough regional debut in 2025.

Speaking ahead of the opening matchday, Wael Al-Fayez, Managing Director of Kings League MENA, said: “Kings League is sport reimagined for the digital-native generation. What excites me is the way it brings sport, creators and digital culture together in a genuinely innovative way, built around how this generation already consumes and engages with content. But real football and real sporting competition remain at the heart of the product. The intensity on the pitch is real, and anyone who comes to Cool Arena will see that immediately.”

Al-Fayez added: “We had an extraordinary response to the Kings Cup MENA last year, and that gave us a very strong foundation to build on. Split 1 is a major step forward: more teams, more matchdays, new stars and our first full championship season. We are focused on creating an experience that brings together competitive teams, committed Presidents, talented players, passionate communities, strong distribution and long-term partners. We can’t wait to get started.”

The Split 1 line-up brings together some of the region’s biggest creators and streamers. Saudi Arabia is represented by defending regional champion DR7, led by Drb7h, alongside two new teams: RA2, led by RAED, and Rising Peaks, led by Abdulrahman Al-Shehri. ABO FC, led by AboFlah, represents Qatar; FWZ, led by Fwaz, represents Kuwait; and Turbo, led by Tarboun, represents Egypt. Morocco is represented by Ultra Chmicha, led by Ilyas Elmaliki, and Bakhira FC, led by Younes Zarou and Achraf Sabiri, while Jordan is represented by 3BS, led by Absi, and Red Zone, led by Maherco.

The full team and President line-up is available on the Kings League MENA website.

The opening matchday immediately brings several of the season’s biggest storylines to the pitch. Ultra Chmicha faces Turbo, before newcomers Rising Peaks take on ABO FC. Jordanian rivals 3BS and Red Zone then meet in a derby that also places Jordan national team stars and team co-presidents Yazan Al-Naimat and Ali Olwan on opposite sides. RA2 faces Bakhira FC, before the evening closes with a rematch of the 2025 Kings Cup MENA final between DR7 and FWZ. The full Matchday 1 and Matchday 2 schedules can be found on the Kings League MENA website.

Split 1 opens with a round-robin league stage, in which each of the 10 teams plays every other team once across nine matchdays. The team finishing first advances directly to the semi-finals. The remaining three semi-final places are decided through the quarter-finals, with second playing seventh, third facing sixth, and fourth meeting fifth. The competition then culminates on October 30 with the Final Four, when both semi-finals and the Final will be staged on the same day at Cool Arena.

League matchdays will take place on September 18, 21, 25 and 28, followed by October 2, 5, 9, 16 and 23. The quarter-finals are scheduled for October 26, before the Final Four on October 30. Each of the nine regular-season matchdays features five matches.

The new season builds on a breakthrough regional debut for Kings League MENA. At the Kings Cup MENA in Riyadh in 2025, the opening matchday attracted 2.2 million live-stream viewers, becoming the most-watched opening matchday in Kings League history. Content on Kings League MENA’s owned social channels generated 717 million impressions between July and December 2025, while online demand for tickets peaked at around 40,000 fans.

Kings League itself has grown rapidly since being founded by entrepreneur and global football icon Gerard Piqué in 2022. The format combines competitive seven-a-side football with creator-led teams, digital culture and an innovative rulebook inspired by football, gaming, streaming and other sports. In 2025, Kings League staged more than 800 matches involving 124 teams and 2,400 players, while content on its owned channels generated 13 billion impressions and its live streams recorded more than one billion views.

The MENA competition forms part of a global ecosystem that now spans seven men’s leagues, in Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, MENA, Mexico and Spain; two women’s Queens Leagues, in Mexico and Spain; and the international Kings World Cup Clubs and Kings World Cup Nations.

Tickets for Kings League MENA Split 1 Matchdays 1 and 2 went on sale on the WeBook platform last week. Each match night is divided into three ticketed sessions: Session 1 (7:00-9:00pm), Session 2 (9:00-11:00pm) and Session 3 (11:00pm-12:00am), with 1,300 tickets available per session. Pricing for the league stage is available on the website, while ticketing details for the remaining rounds will be announced at a later date.

Fans across the region can follow every match for free via the personal streaming channels of Kings League MENA’s Team Presidents and on Kings League MENA’s official channels, on Kick, YouTube,TikTok, and Twitch. Live match coverage will also be available through official broadcast partner MBC Group, across the MBC Action channel and Shahid streaming platform.