Al Karkh

Al-Karkh SC

Full name	Al-Karkh Sports Club
Nickname(s)	Canary or Al-Ghawassa Al-Safraa
Founded	1963; 54 years ago (1963)
Ground	Al Karkh Stadium, Baghdad, Iraq
Ground Capacity	6,000
Owner	Ministry of Education
President	Sharar Haider
Manager	Kareem Hussein
League	Iraqi Premier League
2015–16	Iraqi Premier League, 16th
Website	Club home page

Al-Karkh Sports Club (Arabic: نادي الكرخ الرياضي‎‎) is an Iraqi sports club based in Karkh, Baghdad. Its professional football team plays in the Iraqi Premier League, the top tier of the Iraqi football. The club's home stadium is Al Karkh Stadium.

Founded in 1963, Al-Karkh wasn't successful in reaching the top division of Iraqi football until they were chosen to replace Al-Rasheed in the league when Al-Rasheed was dissolved in 1990.

In the late-1940s a basketball club was established under the name of Al-Mansour Club, where a lot of national basketball players started. The team won the 1958 Adhamiya Tournament with thousands of people either celebrating in the court or crowding outside of it. In the early-1960s, the club was dissolved and its administrative board was transferred to the new Al-Karkh Sports Club which is considered as Al-Mansour's spiritual successor.

Since it was founded in 1963, Al-Karkh were unsuccessful to get promoted to the Iraqi Premier League. For 27 years, they had been languishing in the lower divisions.

Taking the Al Karkh Stadium as his club's, on 23 November 1983, Uday Hussein founded a new sports club named Al-Rasheed. Al-Rasheed soon became the biggest club in Iraq, winning the lower division in their first season followed by three top division league titles, two FA Cups, three continental trophies and a runners-up spot at the AFC Champions League, all between 1983 and 1990.

On 18 August 1990, the Iraqi Olympic Committee decided to dissolve Al-Rasheed Sports Club and transfer all of its properties to Al-Karkh Sports Club and replacing Al-Rasheed with Al-Karkh in the Iraqi Premier League.

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