HIFK Fotboll

HIFK Fotboll or IFK Helsingfors is an association football section of HIFK, a sports club based in Helsinki, Finland. The men's football team competes in the highest tier of Finnish football, Veikkausliiga. Their home ground is the Telia 5G -areena.

History

Idrottsforeningen Kamraterna i Helsingfors was formed on 15 October 1897 by Georges Doubitsky, a 15-year-old student at the Svenska Reallyceum school in Helsinki. In those early years the club specialised in athletics, football and bandy. The football section was established in 1907, the same year that the Football Association of Finland was founded. The first football match played HIFK was at the Kaisaniemi ground on 17 May 1908 where the new team lost 1–2 to Unitas.

In those early years HIFK were runners-up in the Mestaruussarja (then played as a cup competition) on 5 occasions in 1909, 1912, 1928 and 1929. In addition in 1912 the Finnish Football team at the Stockholm Olympics comprised a team of HIFK players.

HIFK won their first Finnish championship (Mestaruussarja) in 1930 a feat that they were to repeat on three other occasions in 1931, 1933 and 1937 in a tremendous decade for the club. HIFK also won the Mestaruussarja in 1947, 1959 and 1961. In total HIFK won the Finnish championship on 7 occasions.

HIFK was one of the most successful football sides in Finland until the early 1970s when the team were relegated from the Mestaruussarja (Finnish Premier League). After 1972 the team wandered around the lower divisions of Finnish football, having even played in the Nelonen (Fourth Division), the fifth tier of the Finnish football league system, in 1980–83 and 2003–05, and only would return to the first level 43 years later.

In total, since 1930, HIFK have played 33 seasons in the Mestaruussarja (the top tier), 22 seasons in the second tier and 19 seasons in the third tier. Their best spell in recent decades was from 1999 to 2002 when the club participated in the Ykkonen (First Division). However, the club overstre

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