is a Japanese professional football club based in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The club currently plays in the J1 League, the first tier of football in the country. The club was formed by fans of Yokohama Flügels as a protest against Flügels' merger with Yokohama Marinos in 1999, becoming the first supporter-owned professional sports team in Japan. Since gaining J.League membership in 2001, Yokohama FC spent considerable time in the second tier of the Japanese football league system. The club gained promotion to J.League Division 1 for the 2007 season after winning the Division 2 title. However, YFC were immediately relegated in the following season. After 12 years in the J2 League, they returned to Japan's top tier, now called J1 League, for the 2020 season. History repeated itself, as they were relegated to J2 after finishing the season as J1's last-place team. The club was promoted again to J1 in 2022, their third stint in the first division. Crest Yokohama FC's crest features a phoenix, symbolizing the rise of Yokohama FC from the ashes of the Yokohama Flugels. The blue ribbon on the top represents the Blue Ribbon Movement, a movement that began at the end of the 1998 J.League season to keep the Flugels alive. History Yokohama FC was formed on 25 December 1998 following the merger of Yokohama's two J.League clubs, the Flügels and the Marinos. Flügels supporters felt that their club had essentially been dissolved rather than merged with, so rejected the suggestion that they should start supporting Marinos – who had been their crosstown rivals. Instead, with money raised through donations from the general public and an affiliation with talent management company IMG, the former Flügels supporters founded the Yokohama Fulie Sports Club. Following the socio model used by FC Barcelona, the Fulie Sports Club created Yokohama FC, the first professional sports team in Japan owned and operated by its supporters. For its first season in 1999, Yokohama FC hired former Germany national team and World Cup star Pierre Littbarski to be the manager and Yasuhiko Okudera, the first Japanese footballer to play professionally in Europe, to be the chairman. The club attempted to gain entry directly into the professional J.League, but the Japan Football Association only permitted entry to the amateur Japan Football League (JFL), at the time the third level of the Japanese football league system, and ruled