Qingdao Manatee F.C.

Qingdao Hainiu Football Club (, known as Hai-Niu or literally the Sea Bulls) is a professional Chinese football club that currently participates in the China League Two division under licence from the Chinese Football Association (CFA). The team is based in Qingdao, Shandong and their home stadium is the Qingdao Tiantai Stadium that has a seating capacity of 20,525. Their current owners are the privately owned cable manufacturer Qingdao Jonoon Group.
The club was founded as Shandong Economic and Trade Commission Football Club in 1990 and started at the bottom of the Chinese football league pyramid in the third tier. On December 31, 1993 they became the first professional club in Qingdao and changed its name to Qingdao Hainiu. They went on to establish themselves as a top tier club and won their first major trophy in 2002 by winning the Chinese FA Cup on November 16, 2002 when they beat Liaoning Bird. In the mid-2010s the club started to decline and fell down two leagues, being relegated twice in 4 seasons.
History.
Qingdao Jonoon Football Club started out as Shandong economic and trade commission in 1990 by some retired footballers at the corporation affiliated with Shandong economic and trade commission associated with some workers at Qingdao Municipal Sanatorium. After playing in the Chinese Yi League for three seasons, the club finished as Second Division Champions and won promotion to the Chinese Jia-B League in 1992 – the club's first league title. As required by Chinese Football Association, on 31 December 1993, the club set up a professional system and became the first professional football club in Qingdao. Subsequently, the club was renamed to Qingdao Hainiu, which means "The Sea Bulls of Qingdao", originates from the sound of the foghorn in Tuandao Lighthouse.
Qingdao Hainiu finished as the Chinese Jia-B League Champions and won promotion to the Chinese Jia-A League in 1994. In the following season, the club was invited to compete the Tainland Queen's Cup and achieved the third place with 2 wins, 1 draw and 1 lose – the club's first international honour. However, in domestic league the club was relegated to the Division 1B after losing an epic battle against Sichuan Quanxing 2–3. In 1996, the club appointed Wu Hongyue as manager, who led the team to a second-place league finish and regained promotion to the Division 1A. Soon after that season, the state-run tobacco producer – Qingdao Yizhong/Etsong Group started to invest the club and added "Yizhong/Etsong" to its name the following year. From 1997 season, the club became a regular member of the top division and was never relegated since then. On November 16, 2002, after beating Liaoning Bird 2–0 in Yizhong Sports Center, the club won its first major trophy: the 2002 Chinese FA Cup.
After eight-year management by Yizhong/Etsong Group, the club was transferred to a privately owned cable manufacturer – Qingdao Jonoon Group and dropped the long term icon "Hainiu" from its name in December 2004. The club's new owner slashed down the budget greatly, sold up all notable players and assigned the former Jinan taishan's coach Yin Tiesheng as manager, who is famous for his defending style. In the following three seasons, Yin brought Jonoon to stay firmly in the middle position of the league. In 2008, after Yin's assignment as assistant coach of China Olympic team, the club promoted the assistant coach Guo Kanfeng as head coach and retained eighth place in that season. After six-round terrible management in the following season, Guo was sacked by the club and former notable Serbian coach Slobodan Santrač took over as manager. Though finished at thirteenth place, the team played a beautiful attacking soccer style and even the attacking combination was duplicated by the National Team head coach Gao Hongbo. Soon after 2009 season, the club surprisingly sacked Santrač and reassigned Guo as actual head coach, with Dragan Jovanovič assigned as nominal head coach due to Gu's lack of qualification. In 2010, the club endured a horrible season and lost the last match against Hangzhou Greentown 0–1, but surprisingly survived from relegation in the fourteenth place.
In the 2013 league season the team's manager Chang Woe-Ryong was sacked from the club despite the team sitting in tenth. The club would experience relegation at the end of the season and the club's owners publicly declared that one of their own players in Gabriel Melkam was match fixing, which resulted in their relegation. Gabriel Melkam would claim that the accusations of match-fixing were a ploy by the owners not to pay his wages and he took his case to FIFA. While this was going on further claims of mismanagement would arise with the transfer of the club's captain Liu Jian move to Guangzhou Evergrande when it was discovered that the club had forged an extension in his contract. In the 2014 league season the club were found guilty for breaking the Chinese FA's rules and were deducted 7 points.
In 2016 Qingdao Jonoon finished second-to-last in the League One and were relegated to the third level of the Chinese league system. Qingdao Huanghai, another team in the League One in the same city, started to get more attention. Qingdao had no more foreign players by 2019. In the 2019 season, there were deducted six points for a rule violation.
Crest and colours.
The club's first choice of home kit colors were all red and they did not have a badge until they won promotion. When they won promotion they changed the club's home kit colors to yellow and their name to Qingdao Hainiu (海牛), which means "The Sea Bulls", which directly influenced their badge design, which was simply a bull. The owners Yizhong/Etsong Group decided to rebrand the club once more with a new badge, which was a simple striped design with the new owners name at the top while the new kit colors became red and white. With Zhengneng coming in as their new sponsor the club changed their colors once again to blue while using red as their new away colors. When the Jonoon Group took over they incorporated their own logo of two tigers merged as the club's new badge and chose orange as the new home colors because they believe it represents "passion and energy" as well as also being the same color of their own brand.
Grounds.
The current home stadium of Qingdao Jonoon Football Club is Qingdao Tiantai Stadium, which is also known as Qingdao First Stadium. Tiantai Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium built in 1933 as Qingdao Municipal Stadium, and was renamed Qingdao First Stadium in 1955. Qingdao Jonoon started to play in Tiantai Stadium in the first three professional seasons, and resided there permanently since 2007.
Honours.
Qingdao Jonoon's first trophy was the Chinese Yi League Champions, which it won as Shandong Economic and Trade Commission in 1992. In 1995, the club won its first international honour as Qingdao Hainiu – the Thailand Queen's Cup third place. In 2002, the club won its first major trophy – the China FA Cup, which allowed to enter the Chinese FA Super Cup where they came Runners-up that season.
Domestic.
Reserve team:
Youth team:
Player honours.
Chinese Football Association Young Player of the Year<br>
The following players have won the Chinese Football Association Young Player of the Year award while playing for Qingdao Yizhong Hainiu:
The following players have won the Chinese Football Association Young Player of the Year award while playing for Qingdao Jonoon:
Top Scorer of 2010 East Asian Football Championship<br>
The following players have won the Top Scorer of 2010 East Asian Football Championship award while playing for Qingdao Jonoon:
Best 11 in the Chinese Football Association Team of the year<br>
The following players have won the Best 11 in the Chinese Football Association Team of the year award while playing for Qingdao Yizhong Hainiu:
The following players have won the Best 11 in the Chinese Football Association Team of the year award while playing for Qingdao Jonoon:
Results.
All-time league rankings
Key
Notable players.
Had international caps for their respective countries.
Asia
Africa
Europe
Central & North America
South America