HIFK Fotboll or IFK Helsingfors is an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

section of

HIFK HIFK, the Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna, Helsingfors (IFK, Helsingfors) rf (officially abbreviated IFK Helsingfors, colloquially often Helsingfors IFK or Helsingin IFK ) is a multi-sport association based in Helsinki, Finland. Formed in 1897 on ...

, a sports club based in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, Finland. The men's football team competes in the highest tier of

Finnish football ) , country = Finland , sport = association football , noncountry = , teamlabel1 = , nationalteam = Men's national team Women's national team , teamlabel2 = , repteam = , nickname = , first ...

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga (; sv, Tipsligan) is the premier division of Finnish football, the highest tier of the Finnish football league structure, comprising the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agency Veikkau ...

. Their home ground is the

Bolt Arena The Bolt Arena (named Telia 5G -areena until January 2020, named Sonera Stadium until April 2017, and Finnair Stadium until August 2010; also known as ''Töölön jalkapallostadion'', "Töölö football stadium") is a football stadium in Helsinki, ...

History

Idrottsföreningen 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 Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and

bandy Bandy is a winter sport and ball sport played by two teams wearing ice skates on a large ice surface (either indoors or outdoors) while using sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team's goal. The international governing body for bandy is ...

. The football section was established in 1907, the same year that the

Football Association of Finland The Football Association of Finland ( fi, Suomen Palloliitto, abbr. SPL; sv, Finlands Bollförbund) is the governing body of football in Finland. It was founded in Helsinki on 19 May 1907. The SPL organises the men's and women's national footb ...

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 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be ...

a feat that they were to repeat on three other occasions in

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

, 1933 and 1937 in a tremendous decade for the club. HIFK also won the Mestaruussarja in

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in ...

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

and

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba ( Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 ...

. 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 Nelonen () is a Finnish commercial television channel. It started out as Helsinki's local television channel PTV in 1990 on the HTV cable network (now part of DNA Welho), and changed its name first to PTV4. On June 1, 1997, the channel expand ...

(Fourth Division), the fifth tier of the

Finnish football league system The Finnish football league system is a series of interconnected leagues for club football in Finland. The three highest levels are managed by the Finnish FA while the other leagues are managed by the regional departments of the FA. System As of ...

, 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

Ykkönen ''Ykkönen'' (Finnish for 'Number One'; sv, Ettan) is the second highest level of the Finnish football league system (after the Veikkausliiga), although it is the highest league managed by the Football Association of Finland. The teams also play ...

(First Division). However, the club overstretched themselves which resulted in the withdrawal from the Ykkönen at the end of the 2002 season and taking the place of the second team in the

(Fourth Division) in 2003. More recently, in 2010, they won the third tier, after defeating

FC Santa Claus FC Santa Claus is a football club from Rovaniemi, Finland that currently plays in the Nelonen, the fifth tier of the Finnish football league system. The club has played as high as the third tier Kakkonen, where they have played a total of 14 ...

in the promotion playoff match, returning them to the second-tier

for seasons 2011 and 2012, only to be relegated back to Kakkonen after their 2012 season. Back in Kakkonen, HIFK rehired coach

Jani Honkavaara Jani Honkavaara (born 2 February 1976) is a Finnish football manager and retired football player, who is the manager of KuPS. Career Honkavaara began his football career in TP-Seinäjoki (formerly known as Törnävän Pallo-55). During his time ...

who was the coach when HIFK first were promoted to Ykkönen. Since his second term they were able to play in Ykkönen for a third time this millennia, when beating their promotion play-off opponent

PS Kemi Kings The Palloseura Kemi Kings is a Finnish football team based in the town of Kemi, who are currently playing in the Kolmonen. The club have spent three seasons in the top flight in their history. History The club was established on October 21, 1999 ...

. HIFK won Ykkönen in 2014 and thereby were automatically promoted into the highest tier of Finnish football,

. After securing their promotion, HIFK announced that they would play their 2015 season home games on

Telia 5G -areena The Bolt Arena (named Telia 5G -areena until January 2020, named Sonera Stadium until April 2017, and Finnair Stadium until August 2010; also known as ''Töölön jalkapallostadion'', " Töölö football stadium") is a football stadium in Helsinki, ...

, the home ground of their local rivals

HJK Helsinki Helsingin Jalkapalloklubi (), commonly known as HJK Helsinki, or simply as HJK, is a professional football club based in Helsinki, Finland. The club competes in the Finnish Veikkausliiga. Founded in 1907, the club has spent most of its history ...

. In December 2014 HIFK launched a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by crow ...

campaign through

Invesdor Invesdor is an equity-based crowdfunding platform based in Helsinki, Finland. The company was founded in May 2012. Invesdor has been reported as being the first equity-based crowdfunding service in Northern Europe. It operates as a matching serv ...

. HIFK aimed to gather 250.000 – 500.000 euros by selling shares of the club valued at 189,70 euros a piece. According to club chairman René Österman, HIFK was in need of funding for the upcoming

season and

gave a chance for the club's supporters to own a part of the club. The campaign ended successfully in January 2015 and HIFK gathered 335.495 euros from 786 investors. After three seasons in Veikkausliiga, HIFK were relegated to Ykkönen after finishing 11th in 2017 season and losing

relegation play-offs In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

against

FC Honka FC Honka is a Finnish football club based in Espoo. It was founded in 1957 as Tapion Honka, and changed its name to FC Honka in 1975. The club currently play in the Finnish premier division (''Veikkausliiga''), having been promoted for the fir ...

on away goals. However, after a successful 2018 campaign in Ykkönen, HIFK was promoted back to Veikkausliiga for the 2019 season.

European campaigns

HIFK participated in the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

in the 1960–61 and 1962–63 seasons and played in the

UEFA cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

in 1971–72.

Honours

Mestaruussarja Mestaruussarja (Championship series) was the top division of Finland, Finnish association football, football from 1930 to 1989. It was replaced by Veikkausliiga in 1990. In 1930 league format was used for the first time to decide the Finnish cham ...

* Champions (7):

, 1933, 1937,

* Runners-up (7):

1909 Events January–February * January 4 – Explorer Aeneas Mackintosh of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition escaped death by fleeing across ice floes. * January 7 – Colombia recognizes the independence of Panama. * Januar ...

, 1912, 1928,

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

1934 Events January–February * January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established. * January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * ...

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events Ja ...

Attendance Record: 10,500 (HIFK – HJK,

, 10 August 2016)

Divisional movements since 1930

*Top Level (32 seasons): 1930–45, 1947–49, 1958–66, 1970–72, 2015–2017, 2019-2022 *Second Level (23 seasons): 1945–46, 1950–57, 1967–69, 1973–74, 1999–02, 2011–12, 2014, 2018, 2023 *Third Level (19 seasons): 1975–78, 1988–98, 2008–10, 2013

Season to season

Supporters and rivalries

Historically, HIFK was primarily the club for the Swedish-speaking population in Helsinki. However, the club nowadays is bilingual and language doesn't play an important role in the club anymore. Nowadays, the most renowned supporter group of the club is ''Stadin Kingit'' (in English: ''"the kings of Stadi"''). Its name derives from the common slang nickname for Helsinki (Stadi). Many members attend the handball,

and

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

matches of

as well. The single most important fixture for HIFK supporters is the one against the major local rivals, HJK. The fixture is commonly known as Stadin derby.

Club structure

HIFK Fotboll run a large number of teams including 3 men's teams, 3 women's teams, 1 men's veterans team, 16 boys' teams and 5 girls' teams. *HIFK (Men's First Team) are competing in

. This is the highest tier in the Finnish football system. * HIFK / 2 are competing in Group B of

Kolmonen Kolmonen or III divisioona is the fourth level in the league system of Finnish football and comprises 104 Finnish football teams. The III divisioona was introduced in 1973 and in the mid-1990s became known as the Kolmonen (''Number Three'' in En ...

(Fourth tier) administered by the

SPL Uusimaa The SPL Uusimaan piiri ''(Uusimaa Football Association)'' is one of the 12 district organisations of the Football Association of Finland. It administers lower tier football in Vantaa. Background Suomen Palloliitto Uusimaan piiri, commonly re ...

. * HIFK / 3 are competing in Group 4 of

Kutonen Kutonen or VI divisioona is the seventh level in the Finnish football league system and comprises 265 teams. The VI divisioona was introduced in 1973 and in the mid-1990s became known as the Kutonen (''Number Six'' in English and ''Sexan'' in ...

(Seventh tier) administered by the

. Updated as of season 2022.

Players

''As of 17 July 2022''

Current squad

Out on loan

Management and boardroom

Management

''As of 20 April 2022''

Boardroom

''As of 15 February 2022''

References

External links

Official football website

Official club websiteTeam info
at GSA {{Ykkönen Football clubs in Finland Association football clubs established in 1897 1897 establishments in Finland Sports clubs in Helsinki