| Full name | Tampereen-Viipurin Ilves-Kissat | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1932 (as Urheilu-Pojat) | ||
| Chairman | Hanna Räihä-Mäntyharju | ||
| League | Vitonen | ||
| 2025 | Vitonen B1, 4th of 9 | ||
| Website | ilveskissatjuniorit | ||
Tampereen-Viipurin Ilves-Kissat is a Finnish football club from Tampere. The club plays in Group B1 of Vitonen, the seventh tier of Finnish football. [1] As of 2025, the club has 269 registered players. [2]
The club was originally founded as Urheilu-Pojat in Viipuri in the year 1932. [3] The name of the club was changed to Viipurin Ilves (‘Lynx of Viipuri’) in 1934 and as a result of the Winter War, the club was relocated to Tampere in 1940. However, there was a club called Ilves in Tampere, so the club had to change its name to Ilves-Kissat in December of 1944. [4]
Ilves-Kissat were promoted to the Mestaruussarja, the top flight of Finnish football, for the 1949 season and were champions in 1950. The club was relegated in 1951. [5] In 1970 Ilves-Kissat became the first club in Tampere to play in a European tournament when they played against Sturm Graz as a part of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. [6]
In 1974 Ilves-Kissat and Tampellan Palloilijat merged with Ilves Tampere, which became fully involved in football. Ilves-Kissat discontinued its activities in the sport but on the lower tiers of Finnish football the club was, in a way, represented by its sister club called Kissalan Pojat (namesake of the Katzenjammer Kids). [4]
Ilves-Kissat guild was founded in 1975 to preserve the clubs roots in Viipuri and the guild has arranged trips to Viipuri after the fall of the Soviet Union. In the autumn of 1986 former players and supporters of Ilves-Kissat decided to re-establish the club and Ilves-Kissat started playing in the lower divisions of Finnish football. [7]
In the autumn of 2004 with the clubs football team in the 6th Division, the management of the club decided to make a push for higher tiers and in the autumn of 2010 the club achieved promotion to Kakkonen, the third tier of Finnish football. For the 2011 season Ilves-Kissat entered an arrangement whereby they became the farm team for FC Haka of Valkeakoski, but the season ended with relegation to the 3rd Division. [8]
After the 2023 season in Kakkonen, reports about the clubs financial troubles emerged. [9] The club had to get 18 000 € in under two weeks of the announcement and ultimately failed in achieving that. However, Ukrainian Pavlo Ostrenko decided to acquire the club and saved the club from bankruptcy. [10] Ilves-Kissat played the 2024 season in Kakkonen and was relegated to Kolmonen at the end of the season.
During the 2024 season suspicions about the club being involved in match fixing started to appear. After a risk assessment by the Finnish national gambling company Veikkaus, the company decided not to allow gambling on games where Ilves-Kissat was playing. [11] The possible match fixing committed by the club has been evaluated to be up to millions of euros. [12] After the relegation from Kakkonen, the owner of the club Pavlo Ostrenko decided to stop funding the club and ceased the clubs first teams operations. [13] After 2024, the club is mainly focused on junior football but it also has an amateur team in Vitonen which is the seventh tier of football in Finland.
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