Olympiacos Football Club ( ), known simply as Olympiacos or Olympiacos Piraeus, are a Greek professional football club based in Piraeus. Part of the major multi-sport club Olympiacos CFP (, , ), their name was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games and along with the club's emblem, the laurel-crowned Olympic athlete, symbolise the Olympic ideals of ancient Greece. Their home ground is the Karaiskakis Stadium, a 33,334-capacity stadium in Piraeus.
Olympiacos was founded on 16 May 1924. Officially recognized on 10 March 1925 and nicknamed Thrylos (Legend), Olympiacos are the most successful club in Greek football history. They have won 48 league titles, 29 Cups (19 doubles) and 5 Super Cups, being the record holder for all of these competitions. The club won its first European title in 2024 when its U-19 Team won the UEFA Youth League. They also hold one UEFA Europa Conference League and one Balkans Cup. They are one of the few clubs to have won over 100 trophies, having won 176 titles (82 national, 27 regional, 30 Youth and Academy, 34 others, and 3 international). In 2018, without counting regional and other titles and without having won the Conference and Youth leagues, it was ninth in the world in total titles won by a football club.
The club's dominance in domestic football is further evidenced in that all other Greek clubs have won a combined total of 42 league titles while Olympiacos also holds the record for the most consecutive Greek League titles won, with seven in a row in two occasions (1997–2003 and 2011–2017), breaking their own previous record of six consecutive wins in the 1950s (1954–1959), when Olympiacos was unequivocally nicknamed Thrylos (, "Legend"). Having won the 2014–15 League title, Olympiacos became the only football club in the world to have won five or more consecutive championships five times in their history. They are also the only Greek club to have won six consecutive national Cups (1957–1963) as well as six League titles undefeated (1937, 1938, 1948, 1951, 1954, 1955). Olympiacos are one of only three clubs to have never been relegated from the top flight of Greek football, and by winning the 2012–13 title, their 40th in total, they added a 4th star above their crest, each representing 10 league titles.
At the international level, Olympiacos is the only Greek football club in history to have won a major European trophy by winning the UEFA Conference League in 2023–24. With their historic 2024 triumph, they became the first club outside Europe's top four leagues (Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga) to win a UEFA competition since 2011, and the first European club ever to win two UEFA trophies in a single season, following their youth team's earlier victory in the UEFA Youth League. They also added a 5th, larger star above their crest, representing their Conference League victory. Olympiacos is also the highest ranked Greek club in the UEFA rankings, placing 33rd in the ten-year ranking, and 37th in the five-year ranking as of 2025. Additionally, they are one of the founding members of the European Club Association.
Olympiacos is the most popular football club in Greece, and enjoys strong support from both Greek and non-Greek communities all over the world. With 83,000 registered members as of April 2006, the club was ninth in the 2006 list of football clubs with the most paying members in the world, which increased to 98,000 in 2014. Olympiacos share long standing rivalries with Panathinaikos, with whom they contest the "Derby of the Eternal Enemies", a significant football derby in Greece and one of the best-known around the world, as well as with AEK Athens, PAOK, and with Ethnikos Piraeus until the 1990s, when Ethnikos was relegated from the top division of Greek football.
History
Early years (1924–1931)
Olympiacos was founded on 16 May 1924, in the city of Piraeus and played some friendly matches with other clubs. It was officially recognized on 10 March 1925. The club's initial aim, as stated in its statutes, was the systematic cultivation and development of its athletes' possibilities for participation in athletic competitions, the spreading of the Olympic athletic ideal and the promotion of sportsmanship and fanship among the youth according to egalitarian principles, by stressing a healthy, ethical and social basis as its foundation. Members of "Piraikos Podosfairikos Omilos FC" (Sport and Football Club of Piraeus) and "Piraeus Fans Club FC" decided, during a historical assembly, to dissolve the two clubs in order to establish a new unified one, which would bring this new vision and dynamic to the community. Notis Kamperos, a senior officer of the Hellenic Navy, proposed the name Olympiacos and the profile of a laurel-crowned Olympic winner as the emblem of the new club. Kamperos would later comment that he was searching for a name that would "signify strength, athletic power, ethics, fair competition, dominance, and ultimately the Olympic ideal." Michalis Manouskos, a prominent Piraeus industrialist, expanded the name to its complete and current status, Olympiacos Syndesmos Filathlon Pireos. Besides Kamperos and Manouskos, among the most notable founding members were Stavros Maragoudakis, the post office director; Nikos Andronikos, a merchant; Dimitrios Sklias, a Hellenic Army officer; Nikolaos Zacharias, an attorney; Athanasios Mermigas, a notary public; Kostas Klidouchakis, who became the first goalkeeper in the club's history; Ioannis Kekkes, a stockbroker; and above all, the Andrianopoulos family.
The historic statute of Olympiacos states:
A club is hereby founded in Piraeus under the title Olympic Association of Piraeus Sportsmen. The purpose of said club is the advancement of physical education among the youth and the cultivation of a steadfast love of athletics. To attain this purpose, the following means shall be employed a) The establishment of athletic facilities of every nature, b) The organization of all forms of athletic activity, both on land and at sea, c) The arrangement of competitions, celebrations, excursions, hikes, and the like, d) The delivery of lectures and the issuance of printed materials for the propagation of the athletic ideal, e) The promotion by every means of any initiative conducive to the welfare of youth. The seal of the Olympic Association of Piraeus Sportsmen shall depict the head of a laurel-crowned youth, with the name of the club inscribed around it.
Andrianopoulos, a family of well-established Piraeus merchants, played a pivotal role in the founding of Olympiacos. The five brothers, Yiannis, Dinos, Giorgos, Vassilis, and Leonidas Andrianopoulos raised the reputation of the club and brought it to its current glory. According to historians of that era, it was Yiannis who chose the club's colours: red, which symbolised the passion for victory, but also white, which symbolized purity and noble rivalry. Yiannis, Dinos, Giorgos, and Vassilis were the first to play, while Leonidas, the youngest of the five, made his debut later on and played for the club for eight years (1927–1935). The club's offensive line, made up of the five brothers, became legendary, rising to mythical status, and soon Olympiacos gained enormous popularity and became the most successful and well-supported club in Greece. Their fan base consisted mainly of the working class, with the team's home ground at Neo Phaliron Velodrome, before moving to its current Karaiskakis Stadium. They became Piraeus Champions in 1925 and 1926.
In 1926, the Hellenic Football Federation was founded and organised the Panhellenic Championship in the 1927–1928 season. This was the first national championship, where the regional champions from EPSA league (Athens), EPSP league (Piraeus) and EPSM league (Thessaloniki) competed for the national title during play-offs, with Aris becoming the first champion. The Panhellenic Championship was organised in this manner up until 1958–59. However, in the second season (1928–29) a dispute arose between Olympiacos and the Hellenic Football Federation and as a result, the club did not participate in the championship, with Panathinaikos and AEK Athens deciding to follow Olympiacos. During the course of that season, the three of them played friendly games with each other and formed a group called P.O.K.
Meanwhile, the club continued to dominate the Piraeus Championship, winning the 1926–27, 1928–29, 1929–30 and 1930–31 titles and started establishing themselves as the leading force in Greek football; they set a record by remaining undefeated against all Greek teams for three consecutive seasons (14 March 1926 to 3 March 1929), counting 30 wins and 6 draws in 36 games. Those results ignited an enthusiastic reception from the Greek press, who called Olympiacos Thrylos ("Legend") for the first time in history. The fourth Panhellenic Championship took place in 1930–31 and saw Olympiacos winning the Greece national league title for the first time ever, which was a milestone that marked the beginning of a very successful era in Olympiacos history. Olympiacos put in a great performance during the competition and won the title very convincingly with 11 wins, 2 draws and only one game lost. They managed to score 7 wins in 7 matches at home, beating Panathinaikos, AEK Athens, Aris, Iraklis and PAOK with the same score: 3–1. The sole exception was the match against Ethnikos, where Olympiacos netted 4 goals and won 4–1. Besides the Andrianopoulos brothers and Kostas Klidouchakis, other notable players of the first era in the club's history (1925–1931) were Achilleas Grammatikopoulos, Lalis Lekkos, Philippos Kourantis, Nikos Panopoulos, Charalambos Pezonis and Kostas Terezakis.
Domination in Greece and World War II (1931–1946)
The new decade marked a substantial rise in Panhellenic Championship's popularity throughout Greece. In October 1931, Giorgos and Yiannis Andrianopoulos, emblematic players and founding members of Olympiacos, retired from actively playing football. However, new heroes emerged, such as Giannis Vazos, Christoforos Raggos, Theologos Symeonidis, Michalis Anamateros, Spyros Depountis, Aris Chrysafopoulos, Nikos Grigoratos, Panagis Korsianos as well as the iconic brothers Giannis and Vangelis Chelmis and the club won five Championships in nine seasons (1932–33, 1933–34, 1935–36, 1936–37, 1937–38) and by 1940, Olympiacos had already won six Championships in the eleven first seasons of the Panhellenic Championship. Especially Giannis Vazos, Christoforos Raggos and Theologos Symeonidis composed a formidable trio of attacking players, scoring numerous goals and became nothing short of legendary. Giannis Vazos played for 18 years for Olympiacos (1931–1949), and managed to score 450 goals in 364 games (179 goals in 156 official games) for the club, being the club's second all-time scorer, also winning the Greek Championship top scorer award four times (1933, 1936, 1937 and 1947).
In addition, the club managed to win the 1936–37 and 1937–38 Championship titles undefeated. Ιn Greek Cup, the team did not manage to win the competition in its first four editions, despite some outstanding wins such as a record-setting 1–6 away victory against Panathinaikos in Leoforos Alexandras Stadium in 1932 (V. Andrianopoulos 16', 68', 88', Raggos 24', Vazos 69', 70'), which is the biggest away victory in the derby's history.