İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediye Spor Kulübü, (literally Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's Sports Club) commonly called İstanbul BB or Belediye, is a Turkishfootball club, part of İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi S.K. They play their home games at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul and is owned by the Municipality of Istanbul. The club was founded in 1990. Club's former name was ISKI SK and owned by Municipality's water distribution company. ISKI SK competed in Regional Amateur Football League in 1990-1991 season and promoted to 3rd League. After promotion, the club's name changed to Istanbul BB. The club played in TFF First League until 1996, but after the 2006–2007 season they were promoted to the Turkcell Super League. Finishing 12th in the 2007–2008 season enabled them to remain in the Turkcell Süper Lig for the 2008–2009 season. In the 2009–2010 season, the club finished the season 6th place with a historical success at its own. In the 2012-2013 season, the club finished 16th and relegated to TFF First League.
Stadium
Atatürk Olympic Stadium (Turkish: Atatürk Olimpiyat Stadı) located in İkitelli, a district in the western outskirts of Istanbul, is the largest-capacity stadium of Turkey. The stadium takes its name from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Its construction began in 1999 and was completed in 2002. It was built for Turkey's failed 2008 Olympic Games bid and cost about €350 million. The 2008 games were awarded to Beijing.
With its 76,092 (all-seater) capacity and Olympic size, it was granted the "5-star sports complex" title by the UEFA in 2004, enabling it to host the finals of UEFA events. The 2005 UEFA Champions League Final between A.C. Milan and Liverpool F.C. was played on May 25, 2005, at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium. The stadium is also certified by the IAAF and IOC as a first-class venue for track and field, and has hosted several European athletic competitions.
Galatasaray SK played its home games at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium during the 2003–2004 football season, due to the renovation of their own venue, the Ali Sami Yen Stadium, and this was criticized by other teams. Galatasaray eventually returned to Ali Sami Yen for the 2004–2005 season, but played some of its 2006–2007 UEFA Champions League games at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium. Sivasspor also played some of its Süper Lig home games at the Atatürk Olympic Stadium due to the bad weather conditions in their original hometown stadium. Istanbul BB, also of the Süper Lig, play all their home games in the venue.
Fan group Boz Baykuşlar
Until recently IBB hardly had any supporters, despite playing in the country's largest stadium every home game felt like an away match. For years the Atatürk Olympic Stadium was the centerpiece to a strange spectacle, the only supporters in the stands would be fans of opposition teams. However, recently the team has won over some followers and they founded a supporter group called the, ‘Boz Baykuşlar’ (Grey Owls).
They are one of the most unusual supporter groups in Turkey, their numbers are small and they never engage in hooliganism, violence or insulting the opposition. They are renowned for their witty slogans, "Bize her yer deplasman!" (Everywhere is away for us), "Hakem haklı beyler!" (The referee is right guys), ‘Maç Var Dediler Geldik!’ (They said there was a game being played so we thought we’d come along).[1]
^[1] IBB Team profile and Turkish club and football news Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead.