Al-Minaa SC

Al-Minaa
Full nameAl-Minaa Sports Club
Nickname(s)Al-Safana (The Sailors)
Al-Areeq (The Deep-Rooted)
Founded22 November 1931; 92 years ago (22 November 1931)
GroundAl-Minaa Olympic Stadium
Capacity30,000
ChairmanFarhan Al-Farttousi
ManagerPablo Grandes
LeagueIraq Stars League
2023–24Iraq Stars League, 12th of 20
WebsiteClub website
Current season
Active departments of Al-Minaa SC
Football Football Academy[1][2] Futsal[3][4]
Basketball[5] Athletics[3] Taekwondo[3]
Karate[5] Wrestling[3][4] Weightlifting[4]
Boxing[5][4] Bodybuilding[4] Futnet[6]

Al-Minaa Sports Club (Arabic: نادي الميناء الرياضي, lit. 'Port Sports Club') is an Iraqi multi-sport club based in Al-Maqal, Basra that participates in the Iraq Stars League, the top tier of Iraqi football. It is one of the most popular clubs in Iraq, particularly in the south, and became the first club outside Baghdad to win the Iraqi Premier League.

Al-Minaa was founded on November 22, 1931, in Al-Maqal. In 1974, the club was merged with another team called Al-Bareed to form a single club called Al-Muwasalat, and it was a strange situation because the Al-Bareed team were based in Baghdad while Al-Minaa were based in Basra and the two teams met in Baghdad on the day of the match only, so after just one season the club was dissolved and Al-Minaa returned in their place. In 1978, the team won the national league title for the first time. After a lean period in the post-war years, the team finished second in the league in the 2004–05 season, and therefore qualified for the 2006 AFC Champions League, becoming the first Iraqi club from outside Baghdad to play in this tournament.

For a long time, the club was considered to be one of the Iraqi football clubs that had its own style of play, and the team practised only under the supervision and training of coaches who graduated from the club, until the beginning of 2011, when the club started to depend on foreign coaches.

  1. ^ "الميناء يتوج بلقب الدوري الممتاز للشباب". shafaq.com (in Arabic). June 10, 2022. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  2. ^ "درع الممتاز.. ثمرة كفاح يقطفها شباب الميناء". ina.iq (in Arabic). June 15, 2022. Archived from the original on July 12, 2022. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d "News file of Al-Minaa club". iraqifs.com (in Arabic). April 21, 2011. Archived from the original on September 13, 2017. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d e "Al-Minaa establishes a committee and supervisors of all club teams". almirbad.com (in Arabic). March 7, 2017. Archived from the original on September 13, 2017. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  5. ^ a b c "News file of Al-Minaa club". iraqifs.com (in Arabic). May 9, 2011. Archived from the original on September 13, 2017. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  6. ^ "Al-Minaa against Al-Sinaat Al-Kahrabaiya in the Foot Tennis Cup Final". alsabaah.iq (in Arabic). January 17, 2020. Archived from the original on June 25, 2020. Retrieved June 23, 2020.