HIFK Fotboll

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 the 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. HIFK's first football game 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 brilliant 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 spent time in the lower divisions of Finnish football, and at one point found themselves playing in the Nelonen (Fourth Division), the fifth tier of the Finnish football league system, between 1980 and 1983, and later on between 2003 and 2005, and would only return to the first division in 2006, 43…

Mestaruussarja Champions (7): 1930, 1931, 1933, 1937, 1947, 1959, 1961 Runners-up (7): 1909, 1912, 1928, 1929, 1934, 1935, 1971 Attendance Record: 10,500 (HIFK – HJK, Telia 5G -areena, 10 August 2016)