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"Neftchi” PFC


SOCAR has been rendering sponsorship support to “Neftchi” Professional Football Club (PFC) within the framework of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects for a long time that represents Baku city as a football club and plays in Azerbaijan Premier League. It should be noted that the team was established on March 18, 1937 in honor of the Azerbaijani oil workers, but as the Russian language was more widely used at that time, the team was previously called “Neftyannik”. The uniform and emblem of the Club also reflect signs indicating that it belongs to the oil workers. The first emblem depicted the Cyrillic letter “H” - “Neftyannik” (the first letter of the word “Neftyannik”) against the background of an oil well. The colour of “black gold” is reflected in the uniform of the team, too. In view of cotton, which was called “white gold” at that time and played an important role in the economy of Azerbaijan, it was decided to embody the colour of cotton in the uniform of the team. Since then, Neftchi which has become a legend of Azerbaijani football by serving to make our republic known as an "oil country", has remained faithful to the black and white colours, though the logo of the Club was changed three times - in 1977, 1997 and 2004. In 2005, a star was added to the logo of the Club, as Neftchi won its 5th championship.

Neftchi ("Neftyannik") played its first official match as a debut game on May 24, 1937. In the 1/64 finals of the USSR Cup, the team defeated Yerevan Dynamo 1:0 in a match watched by 5,000 fans at Dynamo Stadium of Baku. In 1966, the Club was the first and only Azerbaijani football team to reach the podium of the USSR championship, which was once called the "small European championship", and was awarded the bronze medal of the USSR championship that year.

In addition, the Club also represented our country in international tournaments, winning the first European Cup (a 2:1 victory over the Bulgarian "Lokomotiv" in Baku in 1996), winning the Champions League for two consecutive years (in the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 seasons), achieving its first away victory in the European Cup (a 2:1 victory over "Hafnarfjörður" in Iceland in 2005), and becoming the first team to leave two stages behind in the European Cup (in the Intertoto Cup in 2008). The Club is also the first Azerbaijani club to reach the finals of the “Commonwealth Cup of Champions of the CIS and Baltic States” for the first time (2005) and to win the top prize for the first time (2006).

“Neftchi” was the first club from Azerbaijan to reach the group stage of the European Cups. In 2012, the “Black and Whites” defeated the Cypriot team APOEL in the play-off round of the UEFA Europa League with a score of 4:2 on aggregate, thus qualifying for the group stage of the competition.

“Neftchi” PFC is one of the two teams that participate in all championships of Azerbaijan. The Club has won the Azerbaijan Premier League 9 times, the Azerbaijan Cup 6 times and the Azerbaijan Super Cup 2 times. At the same time, the team has distinguished itself among Azerbaijani football clubs and has won the Commonwealth Cup once, the first trophy won at the international level.