AIK Fotboll


AIK Fotboll, more commonly known simply as AIK, an abbreviation for Allmänna Idrottsklubben, is a Swedish football club competing in Allsvenskan, the top flight of Swedish football. The club was founded 1891 in Stockholm and the football department was formed in 1896. AIK's home ground is Friends Arena, located in Solna in Central Stockholm County.
League champions 2018, AIK has 12 championship titles and is third in the all-time Allsvenskan table. The club holds the record for having played the most seasons in the Swedish top flight. It also holds the records for most goals scored against and largest number of lost games. In addition, in this century AIK is the club that has finished top three in Allsvenskan the most times, and finished top three six times in a row. AIK is consequently the Swedish club that has qualified for UEFA club competitions the most times this century.
Affiliated with the Stockholm Football Association, AIK is the only side from Stockholm to have qualified for the group stage of a UEFA competition; the club reached the quarter-finals of the 1996–97 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, qualified for the 1999–2000 UEFA Champions League group stage, and competed in the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League group stage.

History

Colors, badge and kit

Colours

AIK's primary colours are black and yellow. White is the secondary colour.

Badge

AIK's crest is dark blue, yellow and gold. The crest's style is arguably art nouveau, the predominant style at the turn of the 20th century. AIK's crest was created by Fritz Carlsson-Carling, a runner and football player. Contrary to popular belief, the sun has nothing to do with Solna Town's coat of arms. Solna was not a city until 1943, i.e. six years after Råsunda Football Stadium was completed and 52 years after AIK was founded in Stockholm City Centre.

Kit

The first shirt is black and the second shirt is white. Shorts are white or, on rare occasions, black. Socks are striped in black and yellow; second socks are all white. A yellow third jersey was used in 2004, an orange third jersey was used in 2007, a dark-blue third jersey was used in 2010 and a grey commemorative third jersey was used in 2016. A dark-blue first shirt was used for the 2017–2018 UEFA Europa League qualification campaign.
When Adidas was the kit provider, new kits were launched every even year. Nike, however, releases a new AIK kit every year, before the start of the new season.
Apart from the brand of their kit provider Nike, AIK has the logos of the following sponsors visible on their shirt and shorts: Notar, a real-estate agent; Stadium, a sporting-goods retail chain; German automakers Volkswagen; and league sponsors Svenska Spel, a government-owned gambling company.
PeriodKit manufacturerShirt sponsor
1975–77 AdidasNone
1978–80 PumaNone
1981 HummelEldorado
1982–84 UmbroBPA
1985–88 NikeBPA or Första Sparbanken
1989–90 PumaFolksam
1991 PumaFolksam or Kombilott
1992 PumaFolksam or Trippellott
1995–96 PumaScandic
1997 PumaHyundai
1998–2016 AdidasÅbro
2017 AdidasHjärt-Lungfonden
2017 AdidasÅbro
2018– NikeNotar

Stadium

Since the 2013 season, AIK play their home games at the Nationalarenan, which also houses the Swedish national football team. The decision which arena would replace Råsunda, the club's home up until the 2012 season, was made by a vote of the club's members, held in 2011, which resulted in a large majority favoring Nationalarenan over Tele2 Arena.

Supporters

Fans of the club are referred to as AIK:are or gnagare ; both words are the same in singular and plural.
Although AIK fans can be found all over Stockholm and Sweden, the northwestern central Stockholm urban area might be considered the club's stronghold. The blue line of the Metro, a route which is often referred to in AIK's club culture, runs through this area, and both the club's current and previous home grounds are situated there.
Notable fans of AIK include Lennart Johansson, president of UEFA 1990–2007 and dubbed "the Father of the Champions League"; Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden; her spouse Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland; songwriter and producer Max Martin; and Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify.
The club's most important fan clubs are Black Army, Ultras Nord, Sol Invictus and Firman Boys. AIK Tifo organizes the club's terrace choreography.

Rivalries

AIK's main rival is Djurgården, also formed in 1891 in Stockholm, just three weeks after AIK. Widely considered the fiercest rivalry in Swedish – and arguably also Nordic – football, the fixture between the clubs is known as the Tvillingderbyt. AIK also maintains a strong animosity towards the third major Stockholm side Hammarby. The club's biggest rival outside the Stockholm urban area is IFK Göteborg, followed by Malmö FF.

Attendances

In 2006 AIK had an average attendance of over 21,000, the highest in Sweden In 2007 AIK had an average attendance of over 20,000. AIK have had the highest average attendance 39 times, more than any other club in Sweden. AIK finished the 2013 season with an average attendance of 18,900, the highest number in Scandinavia. That was also the first season with the new arena. In 2018, AIK broke the record for most sold tickets in an Allsvenskan game in the derby against Hammarby two weeks before the game was played.

Club culture

The club's entrance music and hymn is "Å vi e AIK", a Swedish-lyric version of a 1971 song, "The Last Farewell", originally performed by its co-writer, the British-Kenyan folk singer Roger Whittaker. The recording that has been used as AIK's entrance music since the mid 00s was released in 2002, an arrangement somewhat closer to Elvis Presley's 1976 cover of the song.

Players

First-team squad

Current youth players with first-team experience

Out on loan

Retired numbers

1 – Fans of the club

Notable past players

Non-playing personnel

Backroom staff

Coaching staff

Medical staff

Other

Managerial history

European games

UEFA Team rank

The following list ranks the current position of AIK in UEFA ranking:
RankTeamPoints
153 Heracles Almelo7.150
154 FC Groningen7.150
155 Go Ahead Eagles7.150
156 ŠK Slovan Bratislava7.000
157 AIK7.000
158 The New Saints FC7.000
159 HJK Helsinki7.000
160 FK Jablonec7.000
161 FC Dinamo Minsk7.000

As of 9 March 2020.

Footnotes

Official