Hammarby Fotboll
Hammarby IF Fotbollförening, more commonly known as Hammarby Fotboll or simply Hammarby[1] (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈhâmːa(r)ˌbyː] or, especially locally, [-ˌbʏ]), is a Swedish professional football club from Stockholm founded in 1915. The club is based at Tele2 Arena in Johanneshov but founded in the neighbouring Södermalm district of Stockholm City Centre, the area that is the club's heartland.
Not to be confused with Hammarby Fotboll (women).Full name
Hammarby IF Fotbollförening[1]
Bajen[note 1]
HIF
10 April 1889 (as Hammarby Roddförening)
13 August 1915 (football department)
33,000
Hammarby IF Fotbollförening – 51%
AEG – 23.5%
Zlatan Ibrahimović - 23.5%
Other – 2%[2]
Mattias Fri
Allsvenskan, 7th of 16
Competing in Sweden's first tier, Allsvenskan,[3] Hammarby are placed eighth in the all-time Allsvenskan table,[4] and has won the league once, in 2001. The club has competed in the Svenska Cupen final five times, winning their first title in 2021.
The club's colours are green and white, which are reflected in its crest and kit. Between 1918 and 1978, however, the club played in black-and-yellow striped home shirts, which since often form the club's away colors.
It is known for its vociferous fans and for having the highest average attendance in the Nordic countries.[5] Drawing inspiration from England, Hammarby fans introduced football chants to the Swedish terraces in 1970.[6][7] Hammarby is one of largest football clubs in Europe in terms of the number of active players of all ages – with some 3,500 players in its organisation.[8][9][10]
Hammarby is affiliated with the Stockholms Fotbollförbund (Stockholm Football Association).[11]
Colours, badge and kit[edit]
Colours and badge[edit]
When Hammarby Roddförening (Hammarby RF) was founded in 1889, the club's crest consisted of a white flag with three green horizontal lines. It drew inspiration from two other competing rowing clubs in Stockholm that used two blue and two red lines respectively on a white flag, but chose the colour green to represent "hope". Hammarby eventually added a third stripe when it discovered that Göteborgs RF used a similar green-white flag with two stripes.[38]
Ownership and finance[edit]
Ownership[edit]
Hammarby IF was reorganised as an umbrella organisation in 1999, with each of the individual sports departments breaking off to form independent clubs; the football club was then named Hammarby IF Fotbollförening (Hammarby IF FF).[42]
In 2001, the football club split the A team, B team and youth team into separate legal entities. A limited company called Hammarby Fotboll AB was founded, in which the parent football club owns a majority stake. In Sweden, all sport teams in the league systems are regulated to be non-profit associations, which means that a majority of the voting rights, according to the "51 percent-rule", is controlled by the members of the club.[43]
Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), the founder and owner of Major League Soccer club LA Galaxy, was the biggest external investor and minority shareholder of Hammarby Fotboll AB between 2001 and 2019.[44]
On 27 November 2019, it was announced that Zlatan Ibrahimović, widely regarded to be the greatest Swedish football player of all time, had acquired 23.5 percent of the outstanding shares in Hammarby, which meant that AEG reduced their stake by half.[2]
Finance[edit]
At the end of 2022, the club held an equity of 115,6 million SEK. The turnover for 2022 was 316,3 million SEK.[45]
The highest transfer fee received by Hammarby for a player was reportedly 50 million SEK for Williot Swedberg who was sold to RC Celta de Vigo in 2022,[46][47] followed by 46 million SEK for Akinkunmi Amoo who left for F.C. Copenhagen in 2022,[48][49][50][51][52] 44 million SEK for Odilon Kossounou who transferred to Club Brugge in 2019,[53] and 30 million SEK for Aziz Ouattara Mohammed who was signed by Genk in 2022.[54]