Yokohama F.C.
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| Full name | Yokohama F.C. |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Fulie |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Ground |
Mitsuzawa Stadium Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama |
| Capacity | 15,046 |
| Chairman | Yuji Onodera |
| Manager | Hitoshi Nakata |
| League | J2 League |
| 2016 | 8th |
| Website | Club home page |
Yokohama F.C. (横浜FC Yokohama Efushī?) is a Japanese football club based in the city of Yokohama. The club was formed by fans of Yokohama Flügels as a protest against Flügels' merger with Yokohama Marinos in 1999, becoming the first supporter-owned professional sports team in Japan.
Since gaining J.League membership in 2001, Yokohama F.C. has spent all but one season in the second tier of the Japanese football league system; the club gained promotion to J.League Division 1 as champions of J.League Division 2 in 2006, but were immediately relegated the following season.
Yokohama F.C. was formed in 1999 following the merger of Yokohama's two J.League clubs, the Flügels and the Marinos. Flügels supporters felt that their club had essentially been dissolved rather than merged with, so rejected the suggestion that they should start supporting Marinos - who had been their crosstown rivals. Instead, with money raised through donations from the general public and an affiliation with talent management company IMG, the former Flügels supporters founded the Yokohama Fulie Sports Club. Following the socio model used by FC Barcelona, the Fulie Sports Club created Yokohama F.C., the first professional sports team in Japan owned and operated by its supporters.
For its first season in 1999, Yokohama F.C. hired former German national team and World Cup star Pierre Littbarski to be the manager and Yasuhiko Okudera, the first Japanese footballer to play professionally in Europe, to be the chairman. The club attempted to gain entry directly into the professional J.League, but the Japan Football Association only permitted entry to the amateur Japan Football League (JFL), at the time the third level of the Japanese football league system, and ruled that the club would not be eligible for promotion into J.League Division 2 at the end of its first season. So, despite finishing as JFL champion in 1999, Yokohama F.C. finished as JFL champion again in 2000 before being promoted to J.League Division 2.
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