1950 FIFA World Cup, which were called Torcida. As of 2008, the club is a stock company, although not listed on the public stock exchange, with majority of the stock owned by the City of Split. It is one of two fan-owned sports teams in Croatia, reaching over 43,000 members in 2016, and over 81,000 members for 2022. There are also over 50 Hajduk fan clubs situated mostly across Croatia and Germany, but as far as United States, Ireland and Australia. History Origins The club was founded in the centuries-old pub U Fleků in Prague (then also part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), by a group of students from Split: Fabjan Kaliterna, Lucijan Stella, Ivan Šakić and Vjekoslav Ivanišević. They went to the pub following a match between AC Sparta and SK Slavia and decided it was time their own town founded a professional club. They all knew how popular the sport was in their home city of Split, and how well their friends can play. The club was officially registered with the authorities on 13 February 1911. While trying to come up with a name for the club (other options being "Velebit", "Uskok", "Marjan"...), the students went to their old teacher Josip Barač for advice and according to accounts, after enthusiastically storming into his office, he told them to take the name "Hajduk" which symbolized "that which is best in our people: bravery, humanity, friendship, love of freedom, defiance to powers, and protection of the weak. Be worthy of that great name". Hajduks were romanticized bandits that fought the rule of the Ottoman Turks. It is speculated that famed hajduk Andrijica Šimić, who triumphantly arrived in Split in 1902 to cheering crowds (after a long stint in an Austrian prison), was perhaps the inspiration for the name. The founders subsequently designed the club's emblem, and a group of Catholic nuns from a monastery in Split, created copies which were distributed to fans. Both the name and the checkered board on the crest were found provocative by the Monarchy, but it eventually allowed them having been convinced that a football club is a good way to train soldiers. Hajduk gathered the pro-Croat party of citizens of Split, Croat unionists or puntari. That is why the club specifically has the name "hrvatski nogometni klub" ("Croatian football club") and has the Croatian coat-of-arms in its crest. The club itself was against the Austrian-Hungarian