Almere City FC

Early history

In 1954, in Amsterdam, the club BVC Amsterdam is founded. In 1959, after that club merged into DWS, disgruntled supporters founded their own club named De Zwarte Schapen, which translates to "The Black Sheep". Nineteen years later, in 1978, the club merges and is named Argonaut-Zwarte Schapen until 1988, when it is named FC Sloterpas for four years. It eventually reached the Hoofdklasse in 1995, when after several violent incidents on the pitch and a six-month suspension by the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB), the club moved from Amsterdam to nearby Almere. The club is immediately relegated before again achieving promotion. In 1997, it changed its name to Sporting Flevoland.

FC Omniworld

That name was changed to FC Omniworld in 2000 as a result of the efforts of a consortium (in which the city of Almere was a participant) to bring professional sports to Almere. These plans included a basketball club (BC Omniworld, now defunct), a volleyball club (VC Omniworld, now defunct) and the football club (FC Omniworld). However, when the Leefbaar Almere party became the largest party in the city council in 2002, the city withdrew from the project. This caused the club to fail the criteria for admission to the professional league in 2004. Private investors were found, and the club managed to meet the first two criteria for admission (among which is a balanced budget) in late 2004 and early 2005. After FC Omniworld's stadium (the 3,000 seater…