Persepolis

Ali Abdo came back from the United States a former boxer with an idea for a multi-sport club, and in November 1963 he put it into practice in Tehran. The football side did not take shape as its own entity until 21 March 1967, and it arrived with an advantage: when the club Shahin folded that year, many of its players moved across, and Persepolis was competitive from the start. Abdo pushed the project further in 1972, declaring it Iran's first professional football club.

The 1979 revolution ended his part in the story — he left for the United States, and the club passed into state hands. What followed was a decade of resistance to being renamed: an attempt to call it Azadi in 1986, then Piroozi in 1987, neither of which stuck with players or supporters. The name Persepolis was not made official again until 2012.

They have played at the Azadi Stadium since 1973, a ground that now holds 78,116. Their fiercest fixture is against Esteghlal, the Tehran Derby.

Domestically, Persepolis have been champions of Iran sixteen times across the country's various top-flight formats, with a run of Pro League titles from 2016–17 through 2018–19 that came under Branko Ivanković, and they added further titles in 2019–20, 2020–21, 2022–23 and 2023–24. Continentally, the club won the Asian Cup Winners' Cup in 1990–91, beating Muharraq 1–0 in the final, and has since reached two AFC Champions League finals without winning either, losing to Kashima Antlers in 2018 and to Ulsan Hyundai in 2020.

No one is tied more closely to the club than Ali Parvin. He played 341 matches for Persepolis and captained the Iran national team, then went on to manage the side to 15 trophies — still the most successful spell any coach has had at the club.