When a Terrace Chant Becomes a Trademark: The Legal Battle Between Al-Ettifaq and Al-Ittihad over the ITTI Brand

In Dammam, there is a melody that anyone who has ever sat in the stands of Prince Mohamed bin Fahd Stadium knows. It starts in the east stand, spreads to the west in about four seconds — a short, chantable, memorable call, repeated to the rhythm of drums. 'ITTI'. Al-Ettifaq fans have sung it across many seasons, many generations of players, through matches in which their club had nothing to win but dignity. That chant never belonged to anyone specifically. It belonged to everyone who ever stood in those stands. Until a registration mark appeared in Riyadh, and the question of 'who owns this chant' suddenly became a legal matter.

I followed this story from Manchester, through Arabic-language reports I had a friend translate, and what made me stop was not the money — because almost no money figure was disclosed — but the moment something belonging to a community got pulled into the intellectual-property system. This is not a story about football on the pitch. It is a story about the moment Saudi football realized that identity is also a registrable asset, and that there is no league-level law to adjudicate when two clubs both claim to own a chant.

Context: From Buying Players to Building Brands

To understand why a trademark dispute matters, we need to look at the trajectory of the Saudi Pro League in recent years. After the wave of investment from the Public Investment Fund (PIF) into four major clubs — Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ahli, and Al-Ittihad — the league entered what I call a 'buying phase.' Money flowed into transfers, European stars arrived, and global media attention surged. But buying players is only half the equation. The other half — the harder half — is building a revenue machine that can stand on its own when owner funding stops flowing at current levels.

In that context, Al-Ittihad's launch of the 'ITTI' brand last July was not a random act. According to the information I gathered, it is part of a strategy of brand development and revenue diversification. 'ITTI' is a short brand token, easy to chant, easy to print on shirts, easy to circulate on social media. On purely commercial terms, it was a sensible move. Shorter and more memorable brands have lower propagation costs and higher licensing potential.

But here is where I want to pause. In many years of tactical analysis, I learned that when a system begins to optimize something, it often forgets the operating language it originally had. A high-pressing team can forget how to defend in a low block when it goes behind. A club optimizing brand revenue can forget that some brand assets are not created in marketing meetings — they are created in the stands, by people who are not paid to sing.

The Riyadh Registration and the Dammam Response

According to what has been recorded, Al-Ittihad — the club from Jeddah — registered the 'ITTI' trademark with the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP). Al-Ettifaq, the club based in Dammam in the Eastern Province, filed an objection. That objection, according to the sources I could reference, rests on a prior-use argument: 'ITTI' existed in Al-Ettifaq's terrace culture long before it was registered as a commercial trademark.

What is notable is how Al-Ettifaq built its evidence dossier. It did not just submit dry administrative documents. It assembled evidence of actual use: terrace chants, merchandise, media appearances. This is a bold legal strategy, and in my assessment, it is both clever and fragile.

Clever, because it touches the soft spot of the 'first-to-file' system. In intellectual-property law, there are two opposing schools: one holds that rights belong to the first registrant, the other that rights belong to the first user. Most modern legal systems lean toward 'first-to-file' but still recognize 'prior use' arguments in certain cases. Al-Ettifaq is trying to shift the focus from 'who filed first' to 'who used it first.'

Fragile, because terrace chants are a very hard form of evidence to map onto formal trademark categories. A chant is created by a community, with no clear owner, no invoice, no contract. When you bring a chant into an IP court, you are trying to turn something culturally informal into formal legal evidence. That is not a natural translation.

Why This Matters More Than It Looks

There is a way to read this story as a small legal news item: two clubs fight over a trademark, wait for the authority to decide, done. But that reading misses the most interesting part.

The interesting part is that this dispute reveals a governance gap. Al-Ittihad and Al-Ettifaq are members of the same league. They play each other, share the same broadcasting system, the same fan market, the same football legal framework. But when a brand-identity conflict erupts, there is no arbitration mechanism at league level to handle it. They have to take each other to a national IP authority — an entirely different playing field, with an entirely different language, and with entirely different standards than football.

I have followed many disputes in European football: transfer disputes, broadcasting-rights disputes, financial disputes. But I have never seen a case where two clubs in the same league fight over ownership of a fan chant. And the absence of a common forum to resolve this kind of conflict is a sign that the league has grown commercially faster than its governance capacity.

Asymmetry: The Giant and the Community Club

It is impossible to analyze this story while ignoring the resource asymmetry.

Al-Ittihad is one of the four PIF-backed clubs, a title contender, a club with continental ambition. It has a formal brand department, a well-planned brand-development strategy, and financial resources that allow it to register trademarks at a scale smaller clubs struggle to match.

Al-Ettifaq is a club with deep history, rooted in its local community in the Eastern Province, but at a distinctly lower resource tier. From what I have observed about the league landscape, the gap in squad value, financial power, and commercial capacity between the two is very large.

This asymmetry creates a highly predictable media frame: strong against weak, corporation against community, brand against identity. And notably, Al-Ettifaq seems to understand this. Its decision to publicize the objection process — rather than negotiate quietly — is not only a legal act. It is also an act of expectation management with its own fans: 'We are fighting for your rights.'

I once wrote that when the opponent has the ball, don't look at the ball — look at the space they leave behind. In this story, the ball is the 'ITTI' trademark. But the real space is the question of who has the right to define a community's identity — and that question is not in any trademark clause.

The Economics: Where Is the Real Value?

One thing I must state clearly: the information I could access provides no specific financial figures on revenue, wages, net debt, or the value of the 'ITTI' mark. So any estimate of the dispute's value must be treated as data to be verified, not as a conclusion.

But logically, we can infer a few things.

First, the direct monetary value of a single trademark is very likely small relative to the total revenue of a major club. So if anyone says this dispute will change Al-Ittihad's or Al-Ettifaq's balance sheet, they are exaggerating.

Second, the real value of this dispute is not in money, but in precedent. This is the first case — or one of the first — in this type of trademark dispute between two clubs in the same Saudi league. How it is resolved will set the template for dozens of similar cases in the future, as other clubs begin registering their own brand tokens.

Third, for Al-Ettifaq, the issue is not just 'ITTI' specifically. It is future commercialization capacity. If they lose the right to use 'ITTI' on products and media, they lose a brand asset they are exploiting informally — at zero cost, thanks to history. That is a loss of future 'commercial optionality,' not a current accounting loss.

The Chant as Evidence: Boldness and Fragility

I want to spend space analyzing Al-Ettifaq's legal strategy more closely, because this is the intellectually most interesting part.

In IP law, use of something can be proven through evidence of continuous and public commercial presence. For an ordinary brand, that evidence is invoices, contracts, advertising. But for a terrace chant, what is that evidence?

According to what has been recorded, Al-Ettifaq assembled evidence including chants, merchandise, and media appearances. This is a creative approach. It assumes that a community chant can be treated as a form of 'trademark use' in some commercial category.

The problem is: a chant is not created to sell. It is created to express identity. When you bring it into a legal system designed to protect traders from consumer confusion, you are trying to translate one language into another — and a translation always loses something.

What I find notable is that both sides are using the same logic: turning culture into assets. Al-Ittihad does it formally, through registration. Al-Ettifaq does it informally, through history. This dispute, to some degree, is a war between two forms of identity ownership: the legal form and the cultural form.

Where Is the Breaking Point?

When I speak of a 'breaking point,' I do not mean a surface event. I mean the moment a system forgets the operating language it once had.

Liverpool did not collapse because of an injury storm. Their machine forgot its own language. In this case, the breaking point is not Al-Ittihad registering a trademark. The breaking point is that no one — not the league organizers, not the federation, not any governing body at football level — established a mechanism to handle this kind of conflict before it happened.

A league entering a phase of commercial optimization will constantly generate new identity assets: trademarks, symbols, slogans, chants, nicknames. Without a league-level governance framework to coordinate registration and resolve conflicts, every new asset is a time bomb for a potential dispute. And those disputes will erode the collective brand value of the entire league.

This is what I think the media is missing. They focus on the David-and-Goliath story, on the emotional aspect of fan identity. But the more important story is the story of a league that has grown faster than its governance framework.

Possible Scenarios

When analyzing a pending case, it is important to maintain humility before uncertainty. I do not know how SAIP will decide. No one knows for sure. But we can model scenarios.

Worst case for Al-Ettifaq: SAIP upholds Al-Ittihad's registration. Al-Ettifaq loses the legal right to use 'ITTI' on products and media. Its future commercialization is constrained. This is a plausible scenario, but its probability is hard to assess.

Central scenario: a coexistence deal. Both parties are permitted limited, non-conflicting use by product category. IP authorities tend to avoid injuring established local actors, and a coexistence deal is a pragmatic solution for both.

Most optimistic for Al-Ettifaq: SAIP recognizes prior use and narrows or invalidates Al-Ittihad's mark in the contested categories. This would effectively confirm Al-Ettifaq's heritage claim.

Whatever the outcome, the decision will set the template for future club-vs-club brand disputes. That is why it matters more than it looks.

The Contrarian Angle: Precedent, Not Money

Here is where I want to offer a contrarian view.

The conventional reading of this story is: a big club is trying to appropriate part of a small club's identity, and the small club is fighting to protect its heritage. This reading has emotional appeal, but it ignores one thing: both sides are commercial actors pursuing their interests in a heating market.

Al-Ettifaq is not just protecting heritage for heritage's sake. It is protecting a commercial asset. If it wins, it has a tool to negotiate, license, commercialize. If it loses, it loses part of its brand autonomy.

And Al-Ittihad is not just an aggressor. It is doing what any modern club should do: building an IP portfolio. The problem is not its action, but the absence of a system to ensure that action does not step on others.

What I want to say is: if we read this story only as a battle between good and evil, we will miss the most important lesson. That lesson is: Saudi football is entering a phase where identity becomes a commodity, and that phase needs a new governance framework. The absence of that framework is the real breaking point.

Why I Care About This Story

I grew up in Vietnam, where football is not tied to money the way it is in Europe or now in Saudi Arabia. But I live and work in Manchester, where everything — from stadium names to terrace chants — has been commercialized to some degree.

What I learned from both places is: a club's identity is not created by the marketing department. It is created by the people who stand in the stands, who sing, who pass the chant down to their children. But when that identity becomes valuable, the legal system tries to assign it an owner. And in that moment, something is lost.

I am not saying clubs should not protect their brands. I am saying we should recognize the limits of that logic. There are things you can register but cannot fully own. Fan chants are one of them.

Signals to Track

When following a story like this, I always make a list of signals to watch. For this story, there are five main signals.

First, the SAIP decision. This is the decisive signal. It will resolve the dispute and set precedent.

Second, settlement talks. If there is news of a negotiated deal, it means both sides are seeking to reduce heat and avoid a hard precedent.

Third, broader trademark registrations in the league. If there is a cluster of new IP filings from other SPL clubs, it confirms the thesis of a league-wide 'brand land-grab.'

Fourth, fan mobilization. If there is a spike in supporter-led campaigns around club hashtags, reputational pressure on both clubs rises.

Fifth, SPL or SAFF governance response. If there are new policy announcements on brand and IP, it signals institutions are learning and closing the governance gap.

From a Trademark Story to the Future of Football

I want to widen the lens a little here, because this story connects to a larger theme I have followed for years.

Football is undergoing a transformation in which everything can become an asset: names, symbols, sounds, data, even emotions. Clubs are becoming media and entertainment companies, and fans are becoming consumers and, at the same time, creative resources.

In that model, the boundary between identity and asset blurs. And when that boundary blurs, conflicts arise. The story between Al-Ettifaq and Al-Ittihad is just an early example of a broader trend.

I think about this when I watch matches. In the Premier League, where I work, clubs have highly developed legal and brand departments. They register trademarks for everything, from slogans to sounds. But even there, disputes over fan identity arise. For example, debates over who owns traditional terrace songs, or whether clubs have the right to control how fans express their identity.

In Saudi Arabia, this process is happening faster and at a larger scale, because the league is growing at breakneck speed. And in fast-growth phases, governance gaps tend to become clearer.

What Happens Next?

I do not have a certain answer. And that is what I want to emphasize. In tactical analysis, I always remind myself that a model does not replace reality. The same applies in legal and commercial analysis: we can model scenarios, but we cannot predict outcomes.

What I know for sure is: the SAIP decision will not only resolve one specific dispute. It will send a signal about how the Saudi league treats community identity. If the decision favors Al-Ettifaq, it will confirm that terrace heritage carries legal weight. If it favors Al-Ittihad, it will confirm that formal registration matters more than historical use.

And that signal will spread. Other clubs are watching. Other fan groups are watching. Other leagues are watching. In a rapidly globalizing sport, precedents travel faster than laws.

Defense Is Also a Language

I once wrote that Morocco did not come to Qatar to tell a fairy tale; they came to prove that defense is also a language of poetry. I think about that line when I analyze this story.

Because to some degree, Al-Ettifaq is playing a defensive game. It is trying to protect a space — the space of the chant, of identity, of history. And like any well-organized defense, it is not just blocking the opponent. It is doing so with a rhythm, a structure, its own aesthetic.

Its move to turn a chant into legal evidence is a creative act. It is not just defense; it is a form of sovereignty claim. It says: our identity is not something another can register, because it existed before the registration system.

Will that argument win? I do not know. But I think it deserves to be made. And I think the way it is made — through chants, through community memory, through things that cannot be measured by invoices — deserves attention.

Conclusion: A Question Left Behind

At this point, the data shows a dispute awaiting judgment, a governance gap awaiting filling, and a question awaiting an answer.

That question is: when a community's identity becomes a commercial asset, who has the right to define it? The answer may come from SAIP. But perhaps the real answer should come from elsewhere — from the football community itself, which needs to decide what kind of business it wants football to be, and what role fan identity plays in it.

If this trend continues, we will see more stories like this. Clubs will keep registering, fans will keep singing, and regulators will keep chasing. The question is not whether that happens, but whether we can build governance frameworks fast enough to keep pace with commercialization.

I will keep watching. And next time I hear a chant in the stands, I will ask myself: who does this chant belong to? And who has the right to decide that?