P.A.O.K. FC (, Πανθεσσαλονίκειος Αθλητικός Όμιλος Κωνσταντινουπολιτών, Panthessaloníkios Athlitikós Ómilos Konstadinoupolitón, "Pan-Thessalonian Athletic Club of Constantinopolitans"), commonly known as PAOK Thessaloniki or simply PAOK, is a Greek professional football club based in Thessaloniki, Macedonia. PAOK are one of the top domestic clubs, the most widely supported in Northern Greece and with the 3rd largest fanbase in the country, according to the latest polls and researches. A research by Marca in August 2018, reported that PAOK are the most popular Greek football team on social media. Established on 20 April 1926 by Greek refugees who fled to Thessaloniki from Constantinople in the wake of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), they play their home games at Toumba Stadium, a 29,000 seating capacity football ground. Their name, along with the club's emblem, the Byzantine-style double-headed eagle with retracted wings, honours the memory of the people and places (mostly from the city of Constantinople) that once belonged to the Byzantine Empire. PAOK currently plays in the top-flight Super League, which they have won three times (in 1976, 1985 and 2019). They are eight-time winners of the Greek Cup (in 1972, 1974, 2001, 2003, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021). The club is one of the three which have never been relegated from the top national division and the only team in Greece that have won the Double (in 2019) going unbeaten (26–4–0 record) in a national round-robin league tournament (league format since 1959). The team has appeared several times in the UEFA Europa League, but has yet to reach the group stage of the UEFA Champions League. PAOK have reached twice the quarter-finals of a European competition, in the 1973–74 European Cup Winners' Cup and in the inaugural 2021–22 UEFA Europa Conference League. PAOK is the only Greek team that has more wins than losses in their European record (80 wins, 62 draws and 76 defeats, as of 28 July 2022) and the 0–7 away UEFA Cup win over Locomotive Tbilisi on 16 September 1999 is the largest ever achieved by a Greek football club in all European competitions. History Foundation and early years (1926–1945) PAOK FC is the oldest department of the major multi-sport club AC P.A.O.K., which is closely linked with Hermes Sports Club, that was formed in 1875 by the Greek community of Pera, a district of Istanbul (Constantinople). The football club was founded in April 1926 by Constantinopolitan who fled to Thessaloniki