Phoenix club (sports)

The term phoenix club is used in professional team sports to refer to a new entity that is set up to replace that of a club that has failed in business terms but not in sporting terms, and generally involves the continuation of the sporting activity.^[1][2] In some cases, the phoenix club is created by the supporters of the club which has ended, or seems to be on the point of ending. A phoenix club will often have a very similar (although, for legal reasons, not identical) name and logo to the original club, and will also use a similar playing kit. The term is particularly prevalent in the United Kingdom and Italy in relation to association football, although it is also used in other countries.

The term has also been used to refer to a club formed by supporters of a major team when a change of ownership or policy causes them to lose faith in the management of their favoured side. This happened in 2005, when F.C. United of Manchester was formed by some fans of Manchester United, specifically as a protest at the sale of the latter to Malcolm Glazer, and at what they saw as the excessive and unacceptable commercialisation of the club,^[3] although the new club's status as a phoenix is open to dispute on the basis that the original club still exists.

The term is derived from the mythical phoenix, a bird which was said to resurrect itself from its own ashes. In at least one case, the name of a phoenix club has played on the term itself: in the Australia-New Zealand A-League, now known as A-League Men, the defunct New Zealand Knights were replaced by new club Wellington Phoenix FC.

In some cases, phoenix clubs retain the name of the club which they replaced, implying a continuation from the former team. In other cases, name changes occur, perhaps due to proprietorial ownership of the old club's name.

An essential element of a phoenix club is that it is a legally separate entity from the original. A counter example is the American football Cleveland Browns, the football organization of which moved to Baltimore in 1995 to become the Baltimore Ravens. The NFL stipulated that, as a condition of allowing the move, the Ravens would have to relinquish any claim to the history and records of the Browns, one of the twelve "old guard" NFL franchises. As such, the Ravens technically entered the NFL as an expansion franchise. While the Browns franchise was deemed to have "suspended operations" for three years, in 1999 it were sold to new ownership and was recognized by the league to own all of the pre-1996 Browns' history, even though the extant Ravens had acquired the contracts of that team's players and personnel. The league and club thus recognize the Browns as one single team, albeit with a sporting hiatus, making the Browns not a phoenix club.^[4]

Because there is no single, universally-accepted definition, ascribing the term phoenix club can be disputed depending on the criteria used. Furthermore, there may be changes in what each country's football governing body and legal system defines as a phoenix club rather than resurrected club.

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (December 2014)