Al-Ahly Sports Cultural & Social Club ( ar, الأهلي), also known as simply Al-Ahly or Al-Ahly Benghazi, is a
Libyan basketball club that is based in
Benghazi
Benghazi () , ; it, Bengasi; tr, Bingazi; ber, Bernîk, script=Latn; also: ''Bengasi'', ''Benghasi'', ''Banghāzī'', ''Binghāzī'', ''Bengazi''; grc, Βερενίκη (''Berenice'') and ''Hesperides''., group=note (''lit. Son of he Ghazi ...
. Founded in 1950, the club competes in the
Libyan Division I Basketball League and has won three championships, in 2010, 2011 and 2023.
In the
2024 season, they will play in the
Basketball Africa League (BAL), becoming the first team from Libya to play in the competition. Al Ahly has won the
Arab Club Championship in 2012 and 2013.
History
Al-Ahly is the basketball section of the multi-sports club; the basketball section was founded in 1950, although the club had been active before. They finished third in the
2008–09 Libyan League season. The club won their first national championship in 2010, and won a second consecutive one in 2011.
In 2012, Al Ahly won the
Arab Club Basketball Championship, by defeating
JS Kairouan
Jeunesse Sportive Kairouanaise ( ar, الشبيبة الرياضية القيروانية) or JSK is a football club from Kairouan in Tunisia. Founded in 1942, the team plays in green and white colours. Their ground is Stade Hamda Laouani, whi ...
of the
Tunisia in the final. They repeated for a second consecutive title in 2013. Both tournaments were hosted in Benghazi.
Al Ahly ended a 12-year drought in 2022-23, when the club won its third national championship. As such, Al-Ahly was eligible to represent Libya in the
Road to BAL 2024 tournament. They acquired high-profile players such as ex-
BAL Defensive Player of the Year
The Basketball Africa League Dikembe Mutombo Defensive Player of the Year is an annual Basketball Africa League (BAL) award given to the best defensive player of a given season. The award is named after Congolese basketball legend Dikembe Mutombo. ...
Ater Majok,
All-BAL First Team selection
Chris Crawford and two-time
BAL champion Solo Diabate
Mouloukou Souleyman Diabate (born 21 July 1987), commonly known as Solo Diabate, is an Ivorian basketball player who plays for Petro de Luanda of the Angolan Basketball League and the Basketball Africa League (BAL).
He also represents the Ivor ...
. On 5 November 2023, Al Ahly clinched their berth in the
2024 BAL season
The 2024 BAL season, also known as BAL Season 4, will be the 4th season of the Basketball Africa League (BAL). The season will begin in March 2024 and will finish with the playoffs and finals in the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda, for a fourth conse ...
, following their 93-84 win over
FAP
FAP may refer to:
Technology and industry
* FORTRAN Assembly Program, the macro assembler for some IBM mainframe computers
* Fair Access Policy, a term for a bandwidth cap, limiting Internet usage
* Femtocell (Femto Access Point), a small ...
in the third place game. Crawford scored 39 points in the decisive game.
As such, Al Ahly Benghazi became the first team from Libya to qualify for the BAL main tournament.
Honours
Libyan Basketball League
*Winners (3): 2009–10, 2010–11,
2022–23
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
Libyan Supercup
* Winners (2): 2010, 2023
Arab Club Basketball Championship
* Champions (2): 2012, 2013
In African competitions
FIBA Africa Clubs Champions Cup (3 appearances)
::
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
– Group Stage
::
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
– Group Stage
::
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...
– 8th Place
Road to BAL (1 appearance)
::
2024
Predicted and scheduled events
* January 1
** In the United States, books, films, and other works published in 1928 will enter the public domain, assuming there are no changes made to copyright law.
***''Steamboat Willie'', Walt Disney's fi ...
– Place
Players
Current roster
Head coaches
The following people have been, among others, head coach of Al Ahly Benghazi:
References
{{Basketball Africa League
Basketball teams in Libya
Sport in Benghazi
Road to BAL teams
Basketball teams established in 1950