Full name | Alahly Sports Club |
---|---|
Nickname(s) | The Boss, The Leader |
Founded | 19 September 1950 as |
Ground | Tripoli International Stadium Tripoli, Libya |
Capacity | 80,000 |
Chairman | Sasi Abu Oun |
Manager | Talaat Youssef |
League | Libyan Premier League |
2015–16 | 1st |
Website | Club home page |
Alahli Sports Club ("National Sports Club") is a Libyan football club based in Tripoli, Libya. The club is the second most successful Libyan club in history, having won 12 Libyan Premier League titles, six Libyan Football Cups and a Libyan SuperCup. Alahly is known as the leader of Libyan Football clubs and has the largest number of fans in Libya.
The club's crest consists of a green and white background, with a torch placed on an outline of Libya. The torch is meant to signify independence for the nation, as it was achieved just months after the club was founded. The club's crest changed after it won its 10th Libyan Premier League title in 2000, with a star being placed on top.
Alahli's main rivalry is with Al-Ittihad. The two clubs are the biggest in the country, and together, have won 28 of the 41 national championships that have been contested, as well as 10 of the 18 domestic cups. The rivalry's name is the Tripoli Derby. In the last five meetings, there have been four red cards.
The club won the first national championship in the 1963–64 season, but then suffered a period of seven years until its next win in 1970–71. The club won two of the next three titles, and picked up the last before the cancellation of the league in 1977–78. The 1980s was a very dire period for the club, as their own failure, coupled with Al Ittihad's success, meant that their rivals went into the 1990s with six titles to their own five. However, they reach the final of the African Cup Winners' Cup in 1984, where they withdrew from facing Al-Ahly Cairo, as the bad Libyan relationship with Egypt at that time meant that Libyan clubs were banned from facing Egyptian clubs.
In the middle of the 20th century, Libya, a country still looking for its independence, started to found many sporting clubs and youth clubs in a political move to unite the youth of the country in order to fight for its independence, and drive out the British forces. A young group of youngsters from Tripoli decided to name their club Al Istiqlal, meaning Independence, but the British administration, uncomfortable with this name as it may have caused a revolt against their power, refused it. The club was therefore named Alahly, meant as The People's Club, and chose the club's colours as green to signify independence, peace and hope for the country. The youngsters who put their names down for the first board meeting were: