Inter Baku Football Club is a Azerbaijanfootball club from Baku. Founded in 1997 according to some Azerbaijan sources, the club plays in the Azerbaijan Premier League and currently is the one of richest clubs in the country, thanks to the sponsorship of Azerbaijan National Bank.
FC Inter Baku won Azerbaijan League in 2007/2008 season for the first time.[1][2]
History
“Inter Baku” Football club has been functioning since 1997, but initially it had a different name. That year, Khazar University – the first private university in Azerbaijan - established a football club with the same name and joined the amateur league. The Khazar University club played as an amateur team the next season as well (1998/99). In 1999/2000, Khazar University began to play in the Azerbaijan Premier League and debuted in 11th place.[3] In subsequent years, Inter finished in 7th place (2000/01 season) and 3rd place (2003/2004 season). In 2002/03, the championship of the country was not held.
In 2003/04 season the team performed well and ended the season in fourth place. This result earned the club the right to play in the UEFA Intertoto Cup for the first time.
FC Inter Baku playing in November 2007 at an older field behind Shafa Stadium.
In the first round of the 2004 Intertoto Cup, Khazar University defeated SC Bregenz of Austria 3:0 in the first leg on a forfeit and 2:1 in the second leg.[4] In the second round of the tournament, Khazar University played Tampere United of Finland. The club lost the first game 0:3, but won the return leg held in Baku, 1:0. Khazar University lost the tie on aggregate and was out of its first Intertoto cup.[5]
In summer of 2004, all rights of the Khazar University club were transferred to newly created Inter Baku Professional Football Club, and the team participated in the 13th championship of the Azerbaijani Premier League under the name of Inter Baku. Later in 2004, certain structural changes were made in the club's management, and Inter Baku was renamed the Inter Professional Club, finishing the 2004-2005 season in seventh place. Inter's progression up the standings continued in the 14th iteration of the Azeri Premier League when Inter finished in fourth place. The club repeated its performance with fourth again in 2006-07 before winning the league championship in 2007-08.
Georgi Nikolov
Valentin Hodukin
Ismail Aliev (1997-99)
Anatoly Konjkov (2004-06)
