Immigrants in Oulu have established Finland’s first and only immigrant-run football team. They’ve already been promoted a division in the amateur league and they’re looking for sponsorship . . . and, of course, cheering fans. 

‘FC International Oulu was started in 2007,’ explains Hicham Rochdi, a 40 year-old originally from Marrakesh in Morocco who is the team’s coach. ‘It was started by four of us – two guys from Iraq and and two from Morrocco.’

They met at Oulu’s main sports hall where the team now practices at 10pm on a Thursday evening on an artificial court. ‘I was playing football and I was training to be a coach,’ he recalls. ‘We just thought it’d be interesting to make a team that was just foreigners and so one day we decided to do that.’

There was all kinds of bureaucracy as they had to register their team with the local registry office. ‘I didn’t know that this would take eight months!’ laughs Hicham. But the eventually the team became part of the ‘Piiri Liitto’ amateur football league and at the end of last season they moved up from the sixth to the fifth division.

According to Sargon Garamusi, a founder member of the team (and owner of the team’s sponsor Ravintola Max) originally from Iraq, the team’s best game so far has been a 5 – 2 triumph over a team from nearby Raahe. ‘But in the beginning we lost a lot of games. We hadn’t practiced much. Other teams played much better. It was so difficult.’ But now things have started to change and Sargon proudly tells me that they recently beat a ‘Fourth division’ team in a pre-season friendly.

In Finnnish football, there are eight football leagues. The Finnish Premier League and the Finnish First Division are professional. And below that there are leagues right to league seven. Unlike in much of the rest of the Europe, football is not the most popular sport in Finland. That honour goes to ice-hockey.

Sargon stresses that what the team desperately needs is more money. ‘It costs money to travel to the games – some of the games are in Helsinki. Most of our players work in restaurants and sometimes it’s hard to get time to practice. We needs more sponsors.’

Apparently it costs 2000 euros just to pay for the rent of the field and the referees in order to actually have a football match and that doesn’t begin to cover other expenses such as football equipment and kits.

The team has about twenty players (the squad and assorted substitutes) and as they turn up to practice it becomes obvious that they are of many nationalities. Redouane Snidate, originally from Morocco, estimates that the players come from about ten different countries. ‘Iraq, Morocco, Somalia, Italy, Eritrea . . .’ he lists them off.

‘When we registered the name we found that there was already an "FC International" in Turku . . . but the players were all Finns!’ he smiles.


However, FC International Oulu doesn’t just take any foreigner in Oulu who happens to like football. They are not only out to be Finland’s only foreign football team . . . they are out to win! ‘Starting from May we decided that we were only going to take the best!’ Redouane makes clear.

FC International Oulu’s first game of the season is on 17th May against FC Rii, at Lintula. And they are looking for fans to come along and support them.

As in other Nordic countries, the Finnish leagues plays in the warmer months - from April or May to October.