Pune F.C.
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| Full name | Pune Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Red Lizards |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Ground |
Balewadi Sports Complex Pune, Maharashtra |
| Capacity | 11,000 |
| Owner | Ashok Piramal Group |
| Chairman | Nandan Piramal |
| Head Coach | Karim Bencherifa |
| Website | punefc |
Pune Football Club is an Indian professional football club based in Pune, Maharashtra. The club is one of the most professional clubs in Indian football history, known mainly for their focus on fanfare, professional playing set-up, and focus on youth development. The club is currently owned by the Ashok Piramal Group.
Founded in 2007, the club managed to gain promotion to the I-League in 2009. In their first season in the I-League, the club managed to finish in a very surprising third place before having their best ever season during the 2012–13 season in which they finished in second place.
Pune currently has a rivalry with fellow Maharashtra club Mumbai, with whom it contests the Maha derby.
The club pulled out of I-League earlier 2015-16 season.
In 2007, Indian football was in the process of a renovation, mainly with the start of the I-League replacing the old National Football League. However, despite this, the All India Football Federation still had trouble attracting investors to create new clubs, specially outside of West Bengal, Goa, and North East India due to the fact that, despite a good amount of fans in these areas and good wages to players, the clubs in these regions still had trouble creating any profit.
Ashok Piramal Group, a company based in Maharashtra, however did the opposite. Despite the city of Pune not having much history when it comes to football or much support for the sport, which is overshadowed by cricket, Ashok Piramal Group still created Pune Football Club in 2007. In creating the club they created one of the first clubs in India named after the city they were playing in and representing.
In preparation for their first ever season in the I-League 2nd Division, the club signed mainly a bunch of unknown players and also signed on Stewart Hall as the first head coach of the club. The club were grouped in Group A during the 2008 I-League 2nd Division along with Vasco, ONGC, HAL, and Chirag United. Midway through their 2nd Division campaign the club changed coaches, going from Stewart Hall to former Northern Ireland national teamer, Bernard McNally. The club finished in third place in Group A and thus failed to advance further that campaign.
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