Al-Hilal’s record winning streak does not make them hall of famers

Whatever the future of the Saudi Pro League be, Al-Hilal has achieved a slice of history. When they beat Al-Ittihad last week, they grabbed the record for the longest winning streak in the game’s record books. The record would be widely contested and criticized, but it was just the sort of positive publicity the league needed at a time when it was slipping out of football consciousness after the million-dollar storm it had whipped up since the acquisition of Cristiano Ronaldo last year and the subsequent exodus of Europe’s elite players.

Winning 28 games on the spin is a monumental feat anywhere in the world. But it comes with caveats, as records often tend to. Broadly speaking, there are two factors to weigh in. A) Is it truly the record? There of course would be claimants. For instance, FK Akradag, a club founded by former president of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who himself designed the logo, last year went on a 33-game winning streak. In fact, they have won every game they have played. But the obscurity of the league, the uncertainty of its quality and the doubts over its integrity, as the ruler of the country is Berdymukhamedov’s son Serdar, were enough for the Guinness Book of Records (it’s not FIFA that approves the records) to cast aspersions on the nature and level of competitions.

In the post World War Two Era, Hungarian club Ujpest reportedly won 30 games in a row, but information of games in that era is sketchy.

Diligent recording of data in football began late, a reason several records are subject to debates. For instance, Pele’s goal tally of 1,279 strikes in 1,363 games, was fervently disputed, as many of the goals had arrived in celebratory games after retirement. He played 550 unofficial