PAOK FC

PAOK
Full name	Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινουπολιτών ; Panthessaloníkios Athlitikós Ómilos Konstadinoupolitón; (Panthessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans)
Nickname(s)	Αετός; Dikefalos tou Vorra (Double-headed eagle of the North); Ασπρόμαυροι; Asprómavri (White-Blacks);
Short name	PAOK
Founded	20 April 1926
Ground	Toumba Stadium
Capacity	28,703 (all-seater)
Owner	Dimera Group Limited Ltd
President	Ivan Savvidis
Head coach	Razvan Lucescu
League	Super League Greece
2023–24	Super League Greece, 1st of 14 (champions)
Website	Club website
Home colours	Away colours
	Current season

PAOK FC (Greek: ΠΑΕ ΠΑΟΚ, "Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans"),^[3] commonly known as PAOK Saloniki, is a Greek professional football club based in Thessaloniki, Macedonia. PAOK are one of the best domestic clubs, the most widely supported in Northern Greece and the current Greek league champions.

Established on 20 April 1926 by Greek refugees who fled to Thessaloniki from Constantinople in the wake of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), they play their home games at Toumba Stadium, a 29,000 seating capacity football ground. Their name, along with the club's emblem, the Byzantine-style double-headed eagle with retracted wings, honours the memory of the people and places (mostly from the city of Constantinople) that once belonged to the Eastern Roman Empire.^[4]^[5] PAOK currently plays in the top-flight Super League, which they have won four times (in 1976, 1985, 2019 and 2024). They are eight-time winners of the Greek Cup (in 1972, 1974, 2001, 2003, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021). The club is one of the three which have never been relegated from the top national division and the only team in Greece that have won the Double (in 2019) going unbeaten (26–4–0 record) in a national round-robin league tournament (league format since 1959).^[6]

The team has appeared several times in the UEFA Europa League, but has yet to reach the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. PAOK have reached the quarter-finals of a European competition three times; once in the 1973–74 European Cup Winners' Cup and twice in the UEFA Europa Conference League, in the 2021–22 and 2023–24 seasons. PAOK is the only Greek team that has more wins than losses in their European record (90 wins, 65 draws and 79 defeats, as of April 2024) and the 0–7 away UEFA Cup win over Locomotive Tbilisi on 16 September 1999 is the largest ever achieved by a Greek football club in all European competitions.

^ "Home Ground". paokfc.gr.
^ "The President". paokfc.gr.
^ Vassiliki Papantonopoulou (31 October 2014). "Myths, heroes and legends: PAOK in focus". uefa.com. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
^ "History". paokfc.gr. Retrieved 26 June 2015.
^ Georgios Moralis. "PAOK FC". footballhistory.org. Retrieved 5 November 2019.
^ Athan Stylos (30 May 2019). "A look at PAOK's 2018/19 squad". agonasport.com. Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 22 October 2019.

[Home_Ground-1] "Home Ground". paokfc.gr.

[President-2] "The President". paokfc.gr.

[3] Vassiliki Papantonopoulou (31 October 2014). "Myths, heroes and legends: PAOK in focus". uefa.com. Retrieved 15 July 2019.

[History-4] "History". paokfc.gr. Retrieved 26 June 2015.

[5] Georgios Moralis. "PAOK FC". footballhistory.org. Retrieved 5 November 2019.

[2018/19_squad-6] Athan Stylos (30 May 2019). "A look at PAOK's 2018/19 squad". agonasport.com. Archived from the original on 22 October 2019. Retrieved 22 October 2019.

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