Phnom Penh Empire
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| Full name | Phnom Penh Crown Football Club ក្លិបបាល់ទាត់ភ្នំពេញក្រោន |
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| Nickname(s) | Crown ក្រោន |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Ground | RSN Stadium |
| Capacity | 10,000 |
| Owner |
 Rithy Samnang
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| Manager |
 Noriaki Ikeda
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| Coach |
 Oleg Starynskyi
|
| League | Cambodian League |
| 2016 | 5th |
| Website | Club home page |
Phnom Penh Crown Football Club (Khmer: ក្លឹបបាល់ទាត់ភ្នំពេញក្រោន), is a football club from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Formerly the team were called Samart United, Hello United, Phnom Penh United and Phnom Penh Empire before establishing their current name, Phnom Penh Crown FC in 2009. The club has won many trophies in Cambodian Football including a record 6 Cambodian League titles (in 2002, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015) and a record 2 Hun Sen Cups (in 2008, 2009). The club were also runners-up in the Cambodian League twice (in 2005, 2006), the Hun Sen Cup in 2010 and AFC President's Cup runners-up in 2011.
The 1950s and 1960s were the glory decades of Cambodian football when the country had one of the strongest teams in the region alongside Thailand, Burma and India. However, the civil war in the 1970s ended that and throughout that decade football was the last thing on anyone’s mind. The green shoots of a football renaissance began in the early 1990s with Cambodia represented at the 1995 Southeast Asian Games and the following year they took part in World Cup qualification again.
In 2000 the Cambodian Football Federation got the Cambodian Premier League competition back on its feet and a year later Samart United were born, with sponsorship from Samart Communications, a telecommunications service provider. After undergoing a number of name changes over the past decade, this was the forerunner of the Phnom Penh Crown team that exists today. 2002 saw Samart United, led by their player-coach and the country’s most celebrated international striker Hok Sochetra, capture the Cambodian League Championship for the first time in only their second year in existence. As champions they took part in the prestigious Asian Club Championship, losing to the reigning title holders, Petrokimia Putra of Indonesia.
In 2005, after a couple of years of hibernation due to a lack of sponsorship, the Premier League began again and Hello United, the new name adopted by Samart, finished the campaign in second place before losing 3–0 to champions Khemara in the play-off final. The club’s top scorer award went to Hok Sochivorn, the younger brother of the player-coach, with 22 goals. At the start of the season, the club took part in the AFC President’s Cup for the first time, losing in the opening round of games despite a 2–1 success over the Pakistani champions WAPDA. Another name change, to Phnom Penh United, happened for the 2006 season, in which the club finished top after a shortened regular season, but lost out in the play-off final again to Khemara, narrowly losing 5–4 in front of a crowd of 10,000 at the National Olympic Stadium.
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