Servette FC

Servette
Full name	Association du; Servette Football Club
Nickname(s)	Les Grenats (The Granets)
Founded	March 20, 1890
Ground	Stade de Genève; Geneva; Switzerland; (Capacity: 30,084)
Chairman	Majid Pishyar
Manager	João Carlos Pereira
League	Swiss Super League
2010-11	Challenge League, 2nd (promoted via playoffs)
Home colours	Away colours

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Servette FC is a Swiss football club, based in Geneva currently playing in the Swiss Super League. They were playing in the Swiss Challenge League, the second highest tier of Swiss football having been relegated from the Swiss Super League at the end of 2004/05 season. However, they earned promotion to the Super League after defeating Bellinzona in a relegation/promotion playoff at May 31, 2011 and have since then settled themselves once more in the Swiss Elite.

[edit] History

Founded in 1890, Servette was the leading club in French speaking Switzerland, having won 17 Swiss league championships and seven Swiss cups. Servette were also winners of the Torneo Internazionale Stampa Sportiva, one of the very first international football competitions in the world, in 1908. In 1930 Servette organized Coupe des Nations, the predecessor of UEFA Champions League.

Led by Umberto Barberis and Claude "Didi" Andrey, in 1978-1979 the club won all the competitions it had entered - with the exception of the European Cup Winners' Cup where it was eliminated in quarter finals without losing by Fortuna Düsseldorf, that year's finalist. Barberis then became French champion in 1982 with AS Monaco.

Until its bankruptcy, Servette was the only club to have remained in the top league since its creation in 1890.

[edit] Bankruptcy

Old Servette FC Logo

On 4 February 2005 the parent company of the club was declared bankrupt. It had run debts of over 10 million Swiss francs, having not paid the players since the previous November, and consequently the club suffered an exodus of players looking for paying clubs. As a consequence of the bankruptcy Servette Under 21s took over the club name playing two divisions below the original Servette team in 1. Liga, a fate already experienced by regional rivals Lausanne Sports in 2003, and continue to play at the Stade de Geneve in front of smaller crowds.

In the 2005-06 season, a rejuvenated Servette secured promotion to the Challenge League, the second highest division in Switzerland.

In the 2010-11 season, Servette finished 2nd in the Challenge League, thereby qualifying for a relegation/promotion play-off against Super League team AC Bellinzona. Servette lost the initial match in Bellinzona 1-0, but won the return match 3-1 and winning the tie 3-2 on aggregate, securing promotion to the Swiss Super League.

[edit] Stadium

The home ground of Servette is the recently built Stade de Genève. It was inaugurated on March 16, 2003 after three years of construction. The opening match was played between Servette and Young Boys. With an all-seater capacity of 30,084, the Stade de Genève is the third largest stadium in Switzerland, and hosted three group matches in the 2008 European Football Championship.

Servette moved to the Stade de Genève from their old ground, the Stade des Charmilles, in 2003. The Charmilles was inaugurated on June 28, 1930, with the first game drawing a crowd of 14,000 on the first match of the Coupe des Nations. The official capacity peaked at 30,000, but a record 40,000 spectators managed to squeeze in for the international game between Switzerland and France on October 14, 1951. Flood lights were installed in 1977 and the stands were entirely covered in 1983. The capacity gradually diminished from the 1980s onward, first to 20,000 in 1985 and then to 9,250 in 1998 when the stadium became an all-seater.

Plans for a new stadium were first launched in 1984, in response to the Charmilles becoming increasingly outdated and run down. A project committee was established in 1992, which proposed to either rebuild the stadium over the course of four years or construct a new stadium elsewhere in Geneva. Meanwhile, with more substantial plans failing to materialize, the poor state of the old stadium became apparent when the main stand, the Tribune A, was declared unsafe in 1995 and closed off. A renovation project began the following year, which saw the main stand re-opened and seats eventually being installed throughout the stadium. Servette would secure another Swiss Championship and a Cup trophy while playing at the Charmilles, before construction on the new Stade de Genève finally commenced in 2000. The last match was played on December 8, 2002 in front of a capacity crowd.

[edit] Current squad

As of 6 January 2012 (2012 -01-06)^[update]

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No.	Position	Player
1	GK	David Gonzalez
3	DF	Christopher Routis
4	DF	Issaga Diallo
5	MF	Lionel Pizzinat
6	MF	Tibert Pont
8	MF	Xavier Kouassi
9	FW	Goran Karanović
10	MF	Stéphane Nater
11	MF	Ishmael Yartey (on loan from Benfica)
15	DF	Roderick (on loan from Benfica)
16	FW	Julian Esteban
17	DF	Patrik Baumann
18	GK	Barroca

No.	Position	Player
19	MF	Abdoulaye Fall
20	DF	Christian Schlauri
21	MF	Lucien Gross
22	DF	Vincent Rüfli
23	MF	Marcos de Azevedo
24	DF	Francois Moubandje
25	DF	Jérôme Schneider
26	MF	Daniel Soares Brites
27	FW	Eudis
29	FW	Carlos Saleiro
30	GK	Fábio da Silva
	FW	Thierry Moutinho