Al Sulaibikhat

In the Sulaibikhat district of Kuwait City, a football side had already been playing before the government made it official. Kuwait's Football Association traces the club's registration to 15 February 1973, entered in gazette No. 912, though Wikipedia, Sofascore and other listings give 1972 as the year of founding — most likely the date the team itself first took shape, a year ahead of the paperwork.

The club has kept the nickname Red Rockets ever since, playing in red and white: an all-red home kit against an all-white change strip. Its history has unfolded almost entirely in Division One, Kuwait's second tier, without a single season in the Premier League. Three times it has topped that division — the first in 1976/77, the other two, decades later, in 2008/09 and 2011/12 — without ever turning the title into a lasting place among the country's elite. A single third-place finish in the Emir Cup is as close as it has come to a major final; the Crown Prince Cup, the Super Cup and the Federation Cup have all passed it by.

Its home since December 2024 has been the Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Stadium, built on the site of the old Sulaibikhat Stadium and holding 15,000 — a considerably larger ground than a club with no top-flight history might expect.

Back in Division One for 2025-26, alongside a run in the Kuwait Emir Cup, Sulaibikhat faces the same company that has stood between it and the top flight for half a century: Yarmouk, Burgan, Shamiya, Khaitan, Al Jazira, Al Sahel and Al Salmiyah, opponents it meets again and again on the same road up.