FC Haka, originally ''Valkeakosken Haka'', commonly known as Haka, is a Finnish professional

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 the industrial town of

Valkeakoski Valkeakoski (; lit. "white rapids") is a town and municipalities of Finland, municipality in Finland. It is located south of Tampere, north of Hämeenlinna and north of Helsinki in the Pirkanmaa regions of Finland, region. The municipality has ...

. The club was founded in 1934 and competes in Finland's premier division, the

Veikkausliiga Veikkausliiga () is a professional association football league in Finland and the highest level of the Finnish football league system. The league comprises the top 12 clubs of the country. Its main sponsor is the Finnish national betting agenc ...

. It is one of the most successful clubs in Finland, with nine Finnish championships and 12

Finnish Cup The Finnish Cup (; ) is Finland's main national cup competition in football. This yearly competition is open for all member clubs of the FA of Finland and has been played since 1955. The winner qualifies for the UEFA Europa Conference League ...

wins.

History

Haka has historically had close ties with the paper industry in the Valkeakoski area, and is still sponsored by

UPM Kymmene UPM-Kymmene Oyj is a Finnish forest industry company. UPM-Kymmene was formed by the merger of Kymmene Corporation with Repola Oy and its subsidiary United Paper Mills Ltd in 1996. UPM consists of six business areas: UPM Fibres, UPM Energy, UPM ...

. The club was founded as ''Valkeakosken Haka'' in 1934, with significant support from paper entrepreneur Juuso Walden. In 1949 it was promoted to Finland's top division ''Mestaruussarja'' (now known as

), and in 1955 won the inaugural

. The 1960s was the most successful era in Haka's history, with the club winning both the league and cup three times, including the first

double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...

in Finnish football history in 1960. The club was relegated in 1972, but came straight back, and won the double again in 1977. The club's name was changed to ''FC Haka'' in the early 1990s. Haka won the title again 1995, but was relegated the next season. Keith Armstrong was hired as the new coach, and the club came straight back again, winning three straight championships from 1998 to 2000. Goalkeeping legend Olli Huttunen succeeded Armstrong as coach in 2002, and led the club to the championship (2004) and two cups (2002 and 2005). Haka's best performance in

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

competition was in the 1983–1984 season when they reached the quarterfinals of the

Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The competition's official name was originally the European Cup Winners' Cup; it was renamed the UEFA Cup Winne ...

, losing to eventual champions

Juventus Juventus Football Club (; from , ), commonly known as Juventus or colloquially as Juve (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Turin, Piedmont, who compete in Serie A, the ...

0–2 on aggregate. The club was involved in European competition every year between 1998 and the 2008–2009 season. In subsequent years the club's financial situation deteriorated on two occasions, like many other small market teams in Veikkausliiga. The first was the 2008–09 season when a group of investors led by local businessman and restaurateur Sedu Koskinen (owner and founder of a nationwide night-club chain) formed FC Haka Oy to help an essentially bankrupt team to finish the season. In 2010 Sedu Koskinen left, after having invested around €1 million of his own money in the club. Since then the club's operations have been reformed to make it financially sounder. The team, having been one of the most successful and prestigious in Finland, ran at a loss for several years during the 2000s. At the same time the overall global economic situation and sponsorship payments from UPM Kymmene diminished. This forced the club to rationalize its operations and adopt a new role as one of the smaller clubs in Finnish top flight football. The situation at the start of 2012 Finnish football season was described by the chairman and board members as difficult but stable. These times of financial struggles saw the club move from perennial championship challengers to a team usually poised for relegation. In both

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

and

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

pre-season media predictions placed the club in the bottom three. Haka finished last in the standings in 2012 and were relegated to the second tier (then known as ''Ykkönen'', but rebranded in 2023 as ''Ykkösliiga''). The club finally won promotion back to the Veikkausliiga for the 2020 season following a near perfect campaign in the 2019 Ykkönen, where they dropped only 7 points and finished 19 points ahead of second-place TPS.

Honours

* Mestaruussarja/Veikkausliiga **Champions (9):

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Janu ...

1962 The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War. Events January * January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...

1965 Events January–February * January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...

1977 Events January * January 8 – 1977 Moscow bombings, Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (no ...

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

**Winners (12):

1955 Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...

, 1959, 1960, 1963, 1969, 1977, 1982, 1985, 1988,

1997 Events January * January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States. * January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis. * January 1 ...

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

, 2005 *

Finnish League Cup The Finnish League Cup (in Finnish: ''Liigacup''), is a knock-out football competition contested annually during the pre-season in winter by teams from Veikkausliiga. The competition is notably the only football competition in Europe which is most ...

**Winners: 1995 *

Ykkönen ''Ykkönen'' (Finnish language, Finnish for 'Number One'; , previously I divisioona) is the third highest level of the Finnish football league system (after the Veikkausliiga and Ykkösliiga), managed by the Football Association of Finland. Until ...

**Champions: 1997,

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

**Promotion: 1973

European campaigns

Divisional movements

*Top Level (60 seasons): 1945, 1950–72, 1974–96, 1998–2012, 2020– *Second Level (18 seasons): 1938–43/44, 1945/46–49, 1973, 1997, 2013–2019

Season to season

*67 seasons in ''

'' *18 seasons in ''

'' *1 seasons in ''

Kakkonen Kakkonen or II divisioona is the fourth level in the league system of Finnish football and comprises 36 Finnish football teams. Until the end of 2023, ''Kakkonen'' was the third-highest level in Finland, but after the creation of new second-t ...

Current squad

Out on loan

Management and boardroom

Management

''As of 15 February 2021''

Boardroom

''As of 15 February 2021''

Managers

* Jukka Vakkila (1982–84, 1986–87, 1993–96) */ Keith Armstrong (January 1998 – December 2001) * Olli Huttunen (January 2002 – September 2009) * Sami Ristilä (September 2009 – August 2012) * Asko Jussila (August 2012 – September 2012) * Harri Kampman (November 2012 – June 2013) * Asko Jussila (June 2013 – July 2013) * Juho Rantala (July 2013 – December 2014) * Kari Martonen (January 2015 – September 2016) * Asko Jussila/ Olli Huttunen (September 2016 – December 2016) */ Keith Armstrong (January 2017 – December 2018) * Teemu Tainio (January 2019 – October 2023) * Andy Smith (October 2023 – present)

References

External links

* {{Finnish Champions in Football

Haka Haka (, ; singular ''haka'', in both Māori language, Māori and New Zealand English) are a variety of ceremonial dances in Māori culture. A performance art, hakas are often performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the f ...

Association football clubs established in 1934 1934 establishments in Finland Valkeakoski Sport in Pirkanmaa