Al Quwa Al Jawiya

The founders came from the ranks of the Iraqi Air Force itself: a group of officers based at the British RAF station at Hinaidi put together a football side and called it Gipsy Moth. That was on 4 July 1931, which makes the club, still known today as the Falcons after the bird on its crest, the oldest still playing in Iraq.

The falcon has outlasted several grounds. The old Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya Stadium, a modest ground holding six to ten thousand, was pulled down in July 2025 to make room for a 15,000-seat replacement due in 2028; in the meantime the club plays its football at the far larger Al-Madina Stadium. Along the way it has also turned out at Al-Shaab and at the Franco Hariri ground.

Domestically the record reads nine league titles and six cups, but the run that set the club apart came in Asia: three straight AFC Cups, in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Hammadi Ahmed's winner in the 2016 final started that sequence.

Baghdad's football has long run through four clubs, and the Falcons' oldest rivalry belongs to the Police Club, Al-Shorta, a fixture traced back to a first meeting on 2 January 1933. The derby against Al-Zawraa carries the heavier billing now, known locally as the Baghdad El Clásico. Among the names attached to the club, Ammo Baba stands out: he joined in 1957 and was on the pitch when Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya won its first league championship the following season.

Ninety-five years after Hinaidi, the club added an eighteenth Iraq Stars League title in 2025–26.