Al-Shabab Sports Club () is a

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

club based in

Raqqa Raqqa (, also , Kurdish language, Kurdish: ''Reqa'') is a city in Syria on the North bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and b ...

. It was founded in 1962. They play their home games at the Raqqa Stadium. In 2016

Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RSS or RBSS; ) is a citizen journalist group reporting Syrian war news and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant#Human rights abuse and war crime findings, human rights abuses by Islamic State of Iraq and the L ...

reported that members of the club were targeted by the

Islamic State The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS ...

in the course of the Syrian civil war, and that 5 men, including players and a coach of the Al-Shabab SC football club, were publicly

beheaded Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common c ...

by them. In 2018 the inaugural match of the Euphrates Championship was played at Raqqa Stadium against Manbij SC by the partially reunited team.

Raqqa Stadium

Raqqa Stadium or Malaab al-Baladi (nicknamed "Black Stadium") was constructed in 2006 and was operational as a sports facility until 2011, the start of the protests against Bashar al-Assad. In 2012 the

Syrian Arab Armed Forces The Syrian Arab Armed Forces (SAAF; ) were the combined armed forces of Syria from 1963 to 2024. They served during the rule of the Ba'ath Party in Syria. The SAAF consisted of the Syrian Arab Army, Syrian Arab Air Force, Syrian Arab Air De ...

were accused by opposition activists of shelling opposition areas from the stadium. ISIS used the stadium as the "largest detention center" in the region. During the Battle of Raqqa, ISIS made their

last stand A last stand, or final stand, is a military situation in which a body of troops holds a defensive position in the face of overwhelming and virtually insurmountable odds. Troops may make a last stand due to a sense of duty; because they are d ...

at the stadium, which was liberated by the

Syrian Democratic Forces The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is a Kurds in Syria, Kurdish-led coalition of U.S.-backed Left-wing politics, left-wing ethnic militias and rebel groups, and serves as the official military wing of the Democratic Autonomous Administration ...

on 17 October 2017. The virtual ISIS Prisons Museum has extensively 3D-modelled and photographed the stadium for an exhibit and

virtual tour A virtual tour is a simulation of an existing location, usually composed of a sequence of videos, still images or 360-degree images. It may also use other multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, text and floor map. The phras ...

in a

virtual museum A virtual museum is a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity, and richness of content. Virtual museums can perform as ...

intended to document Islamic State prisons and what the victims of them had been through. It is estimated that the grandstand of the stadium became severely damaged by fighting "between November 2015 and May 2016" while Raqqa was the de facto capital of the Islamic State The stadium was repaired and rehabilitated from 2017 to 2019 by the

Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), also known as Rojava, is a ''de facto'' Autonomous administrative division, autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing Regions of North and E ...

and has a current spectator capacity of 15,000. The stadium's various halls and its grounds have since been used for sporting events such as karate lessons and civic events such as the celebration of

Newroz Newroz () is the Kurdish celebration of Nowruz; the arrival of spring and new year in Kurdish culture. The lighting of the fires at the beginning of the evening of March 20 is the main symbol of Newroz among the Kurds. In Zoroastrianism, fire i ...

in March 2024. It has also been used for the assistance of

internally displaced person An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee. I ...

s by the

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, l ...

References

Shabab Association football clubs established in 1962 1962 establishments in Syria {{Syria-footyclub-stub