Works team

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For the motorsports term, see Factory-backed.

Players of PSV posing with the European Cup together with Frits Philips, chairman of the BOD of Philips, after their 1988 European Cup Final victory over Benfica in Stuttgart

A works team, sometimes also referred to as factory team and company team, is a sports team that is financed and run by a manufacturer or other business, institution, or organization in a broad sense. Works teams have very close ties with their main sponsor and owner, and usually incorporate its logo, its name, or both, in the sport club or team logo. Sometimes, works teams contain or are entirely made up of employees of the supporting company.[1][2] In motorsport, a works team or factory team is a manufacturer that builds its own car or motorbike including the engine.[3]

Company teams are owned, sponsored and managed by companies in order to raise awareness about those companies'

e.g. Red Bull GmbH)[7] owns more than one team named after it competing in different sports or even in the same sport.[8][9][10]

When they meet certain criteria, college and university teams, also known sometimes as student teams, competing in semi-professional or professional leagues and championships, instead of exclusively competing in university/college level sport, have been considered works teams as well. In some regions of the world like Europe and Latin America, university/college sports teams are in many instances fully-integrated in the same national sports league or championship system where amateur, semi-professional and professional teams and athletes compete in one of many divisions of the system's pyramid.[11][12]

Many works teams, factory teams or student teams were started to give staff or students some exercise and entertainment and eventually became professional teams without actually having workers, factory workers or students in their squads, but retained their original names to reflect their historical background.[13]

By Sport

American football

Works teams were common in the early days of

Nesser Brothers, and eventually became a charter member of the National Football League
.

The National Public Safety Football League is a modern-day example of a league of works teams, with each team in the league consisting of employees of a public department (usually police or fire) in a given city.

The Green Bay Packers obtained its name through company sponsorship from a meat packing company named the Indian Packing Company and its employee and team founder, Curly Lambeau.

The Chicago Bears was established by the A. E. Staley food starch company of Decatur, Illinois, as a company team under the name 'Decatur Staleys'. Today, A.E. Staley is an American subsidiary of Tate & Lyle PLC, a British company that produces a range of starch products for the food, paper and other industries, high-fructose corn syrup, crystalline fructose, and other agro-industrial products.

Association football

Africa

Former and current works teams in Africa include

sporting club) and AS Police (Benin). Horseed FC
is based in Horseed, Somalia. A seven-time champion of the Somalia League, it is a former army team. Other works teams that have played in the Somali football leagues include Banaadir Telecom, Ports Authority, and Somali Police.

A number of works teams were founded in the former

Textáfrica do Chimoio are examples of two works teams which were the teams of two textile companies. In addition, two major teams of the railway network also achieved notoriety – the Clube Ferroviário de Maputo and the Clube Ferroviário da Beira
.

Asia

Current and former Asian works teams include

United City FC
which was once the works team of Vallacar Transit Inc.

Japan

Works teams are common in Japan, with several

Maruyasu Okazaki. The highest league Japanese works teams can compete in is the Japan Football League, the de facto national fourth division; the J. League specifically bars works teams from its ranks unless they professionalise and adopt the community they play in as a source of fan support. Yokohama FC is owned by Japanese restaurant operator Onodera Group (which became also a majority shareholder of Portuguese club UD Oliveirense in November 2022) and thus can be described as a company team as well.[14]

South Korea

Current and former works teams in South Korea include

Ulsan Hyundai Mipo Dolphin FC, and Hanil Bank FC. Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors, Ulsan HD FC, Seoul E-Land FC and Suwon Samsung Bluewings
are prominent company teams in South Korea.

China

In China, there are several works teams or company teams playing in the top professional competitions. These include Beijing Guoan F.C., Changchun Yatai F.C., Guangzhou F.C., Tianjin Jinmen Tiger F.C. and Shanghai Port F.C..

India

Dempo SC is owned and sponsored by the Dempo Mining Corporation Limited. ASEB Sports Club and Oil India FC are other examples of company teams. In the past, JCT FC was owned by JCT Mills.

Iran

In Iran current and former work teams include the Zob Ahan Esfahan F.C., affiliated with a steel factory in Isfahan and Sepahan S.C., owned by Mobarake Steel company. There are many other teams in Iran that are factory, company and workers teams including, Aluminium Arak F.C., Paykan F.C., Foolad F.C., Sanat Naft Abadan F.C., F.C. Nassaji Mazandaran, Gol Gohar Sirjan F.C.

Taiwan

Tatung F.C., a Taiwanese professional football club based in Taipei, was affiliated with the Tatung electronics company
.

Europe

European former works teams that later would become noteworthy professional company teams include those of PSV Eindhoven (Philips), FC Sochaux-Montbéliard (Peugeot), Bayer Leverkusen (Bayer), VfL Wolfsburg (Volkswagen) and FC Carl Zeiss Jena (Carl Zeiss). Most of them are still company teams owned by the company which founded the sports club in the past. Founded, sponsored and owned by Red Bull GmbH, which uses the sports teams as part and parcel of its products' marketing strategy, RB Leipzig and FC Red Bull Salzburg became noted examples of European company teams at the start of the 21st century.[15][16]

France

Groupe Danone
), are examples of notable works or company teams from France linked to well-known multinational companies.

Hungary

The name of the football club

Videoton FC
(Hungary) comes from a Hungarian contract electronics manufacturer. The club, founded in 1941 by the defence manufacturing company Székesfehérvári Vadásztölténygyár, was made up of workers of the local factory in its early years.

Ireland

In the

Fordsons, Jacobs, Midland Athletic and Dundalk all had their origins as a factory or works team. In Northern Ireland, Linfield F.C. was founded in Sandy Row in March 1886 by workers from the Ulster Spinning Company's Linfield Mill. Originally named the Linfield Athletic Club, its playing ground, "the Meadow", was situated behind the mill. Lisburn Distillery F.C. was created as Distillery[17]
by employees of Dunville's Royal Irish Distillery in Grosvenor Street, Belfast in July 1879.

Italy

In Italy, football teams such as

FeralpiSalò, owned by ironworks company Feralpi Group.[20]

Moldova

FC Sheriff Tiraspol is based in the capital of Transnistria, was founded by the Sheriff security company in 1997.

Portugal

The Portuguese conglomerate

cork industry company with the same name.[23][24][25]

Romania

In Romania, Rapid Bucharest was founded in 1923 by a group workers of the Grivița workshops under the name of Asociația culturală și sportivă CFR ("CFR Cultural and Sports Association"). Fotbal Club CFR 1907 Cluj was founded in 1907, when the city of Cluj-Napoca was part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, under the name Cluj Railway Sports Club (Kolozsvári Vasutas Sport Club). From 1907 to 1910, the team played in the municipal championship.

Spain

The oldest football club in Spain is

Rio Tinto Company. Sevilla FC, started as a team made up of workers from the Seville Water Works, while Atlético Madrid
was, from 1939 to 1947, called Athletic Aviación de Madrid, having merged with Aviación Nacional of Zaragoza, founded in 1939 by members of the Spanish Air Force.

Ukraine

Most of the

FC Torpedo Zaporizhia traces its roots to the team of ZAZ
car factory.

United Kingdom

Several professional football clubs in the United Kingdom were also formed as works teams, including Manchester United (the team of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath), Arsenal (formed as Dial Square in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich), West Ham United (formerly Thames Ironworks), Coventry City, founded by workers of the Singer bicycle company, and the Scottish team Livingston (formerly Ferranti Thistle).

A few amateur and semi-professional United Kingdom association football (soccer) works teams retain their companies' names, including

Burntisland Shipyard A.F.C.
, while Glynhill Moorcroft A.F.C. began as Babcock & Wilcox F.C., the works team of the Renfrew engineering company.

Former European countries
Former SFR Yugoslavia
The locomotive at the stadium of FK Željezničar, formed by railway employees.[27]

Fudbalski klub Željezničar (English: Football Club Željezničar) is a Bosnian professional football club based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The name Željezničar means "railway worker", given because it was established by a group of railway workers. Another working-class football club from Bosnia is NK Čelik (lit. transl. FC Steel) from Zenica, which was founded by the workers of the iron and steel mill in Zenica. Being a mineral-rich country, with many mines all over Bosnia, led to establishment of several clubs named FK Rudar (transl. FC Miner), such as FK Rudar Prijedor, FK Rudar Ugljevik, FK Rudar Kakanj, FK Rudar Breza, while other clubs are simply called FK Radnik or FK Radnički (transl. Laborer – transl. Worker's), such as FK Radnik Bijeljina, FK Radnik Hadžići, or FK Radnički Lukavac.

More clubs in former Yugoslavia were formed by

NK Železničar Ljubljana. In relation with railways, Serbian club GFK Jasenica 1911 became known during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as FK Mladost GOŠA because at that period the club was backed by the GOŠA, a former train wagons factory from Smederevska Palanka
.

Other cases in Yugoslavia include

FC Zlín which was known between 1924 and 1948 as SK Bata Zlin.[32]

The best well known success story of a company and football club connection in Yugoslavia was the one of

First League of FR Yugoslavia
, however the results were being worse each year, and by the turn of the millennium FK Zemun was relegated to the lower-leagues with just few occasional but flashy and inconsistent comebacks. Easy to conclude how the presence of Galenika in the club was fundamental for them to archive results and stability and without them Zemun supporters can only remember nostalgically the period when the club had its golden era thanks to the perfect wedding with a major local pharmaceutical company.

One of those minor clubs that emerged in Zemun was

SK Naša Krila Zemun (Naša Krila means Our Wings), which existed only for three years between 1947 and 1950, and was formed and owned by the Yugoslav Air Force. The club managed to achive an impressive record for such a short existence, making its presence in two seasons in the Yugoslav First League and reaching the Yugoslav Cup final in 1947 and 1949. While the Yugoslav Air Force created its club in Serbia in Zemun, a suburb of the capital Belgrade, the Yugoslav Navy created their club in Croatia, in the major Yugoslav port, Split
, and named it NK Mornar Split. However, just as Naša Krila, the club lived shortly, it was formed in 1946 and disbanded two years later and by the 1960s a new club, which was formed by a merger of a number of smaller ones, was making its way to the highlights of Yugoslav football.

Serbian club FK Smederevo 1924 was founded as a local iron factory SARTID football team. The club will be known by the company name since its foundation, in 1924, until 1944 when it became nationalised. In 1992, it will restore the name Sartid just as the club ownership returned to the Sartid metallurgical company and this state of affairs will remain till 2004, the year the company, by then now owned by U.S. Steel, left the direction of the club.

There are many other cases in Serbia, specially among medium-size clubs and their main local companies, such as

Pivara Čelarevo), FK Mladost Apatin (formed by the owner of a local clothing factory Tri Zvezde, it was named since its foundation in 1924 till 1950 as SK Tri Zvezde and during that time most of the players of the squad were also employees at the factory[33]
).

Former Soviet Union
Further information: Voluntary Sports Societies of the Soviet Union

In the Soviet Union there were officially no professional footballers as everyone supposedly lived in the country of working people. So the Soviet footballers were officially on the books of big Soviet industrial giants or state agencies and were officially paid by those employers as their workers even though never performing functions for what they were paid.

North America

Bethlehem Steel F.C., which holds a record number of U.S. Open Cup wins, was the factory team of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Pennsylvania. The New York Red Bulls
is a well-known company team in the US.

Mexico

One of the most popular teams in Mexico,

Cooperativa La Cruz Azul S.C.L.
, an industrial cement company. The team was formed on 22 May 1927 by some of the company's workers.

South America

Argentina

Several Argentinian clubs began life as the works teams of British-owned railway companies, including

Argentine football club, based in Corrientes, in the Province of the same name. The club was founded under the name "Club Deportivo Tipoiti" on 14 December 1952, by a group of textile workers from the Tipoiti textile factory in Corrientes, Argentina. Because the Argentine Football Association did not accept commercial company names, the club had to change its name to "Club Deportivo Mandiyú", which means cotton in the indigenous language of Guaraní
.

Brazil

In Brazil, clubs that were born as works teams include São Paulo Railway (now

sporting club, formed by railway workers), and Bangu. Artsul (concrete industry), Icasa (cotton industry) and Red Bull Bragantino
(energy drink industry) are examples of football teams established and backed by companies, also known as company teams.

Uruguay

Uruguay has one of the best known clubs that began as a works team:

Peñarol
, one of the top two clubs in that country.

Ecuador

In Ecuador, a perfect example of a works team is

Huaorani
tribes that they encountered while prospecting for oil in the Ecuadorian Amazonian jungles.

Peru

In Peru, Club Alianza Lima was founded as Sport Alianza in 1901 by workers in the Alianza Racing Horse Stud, then property of two-time President of Peru Augusto B. Leguía.

Baseball

In Japan, teams playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball leagues, like the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, a prominent professional baseball team owned by the SoftBank Group, are company teams which employ the name of their owners in their official team names and logos.[34] Other company teams belonging to major corporations competing in the main Japanese professional baseball leagues include Chiba Lotte Marines (Lotte Holdings), Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (Nippon Ham Co., Ltd), Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (Rakuten) and Tokyo Yakult Swallows (Yakult Honsha), among others.

Basketball

Europe

Portugal

The

Portugal Telecom, the largest telecommunications service provider in the country. It was dissolved in 2003.[35][36][37]

Cycling

Many Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) professional cycling teams are owned, sponsored and managed by companies in order to raise awareness about those companies' brands. These cycling teams are usually named after those companies and brands in a premeditated attempt to boost those companies' marketing strategy. Examples of this have been found in many different geographical locations and markets around the world and throughout the history of the sport. UCI WorldTeam is the term used by the UCI to name a cycling team of the highest category in professional road cycling and many have been backed by commercial brands to such an extent that the team name became interchangeable with the commercial brand behind it. Until the mid-1950s professional cycling sponsorship was limited to manufacturing companies in the bicycle business. In 1954, when the European post-war bike boom ended, European bike companies became financially stressed. In 1953, the Ganna bike company's racing team told its top rider Fiorenzo Magni that it would be unable to maintain the team in the following season. Magni was well-connected with the German Nivea brand because the riders used Nivea products to soften the chamois in their shorts. When Magni signed the cosmetic company as his team's title sponsor, he spearheaded a new trend in cycling where teams became part and parcel of many companies' marketing strategy.[38] Peugeot's cycling team, a fully-fledged factory team or company team in cycling by definition since Peugeot founded the team and produced its bikes, is listed on cyclingranking.com as the most successful cycling team of all time, with a large margin on the second placed team, Alcyon (started by Alcyon, a French bicycle, automobile and motorcycle manufacturer).[39]

Rugby union

Currently the strongest works teams are in Asia. The

Samsung
has a team in the Korean league.

In United Kigdom's rugby union, too has a works team tradition going back many decades, although the clubs have declined post professionalism in heartland countries, it has not been completely extinguished. As late as 1988 the Wales Captain played his club rugby for South Wales Police. As of 2017, Tata Steel play in the Second Flight of the WRU Club Pyramid. The British Army still plays occasional matches against Clubs, and has won the Middlesex Sevens in the 2000s.

Works or factory teams in motorsport

Main article: Factory-backed
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, a joint factory-backed team of KTM and company team of Red Bull in Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

In

in-house capabilities in order to secure the production of its own powertrains by 2026.[16][42] In the 2010s, many works teams, also known as factory-backed teams in the context of motorsport, entered the newly created Formula E open-wheel electric motorsport series.[43][44][45]

Professional or semi-professional college and university teams

A number of college and university teams around the world have played professionally or semi-professionally while competing in the main top level leagues and championships of their countries instead of competing in university/college level sport, this includes:[11][12]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sports teams of manufacturing companies.

References

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