UD Almería

Unión Deportiva Almería S. A. D. is a football club from the city of Almería, in the province of Almería, Spain. It was founded on 26 July 1989 under the name Almería Club de Fútbol, adopting its current name in 2001, which amounted only to a change of initials, since the club is the same, having kept its original federative number from 1989. It currently plays in the Segunda División of Spain. It plays its home matches at the UD Almería Stadium, with a capacity of 18,331 spectators.

It is the 26th team with the most supporters in Spain (0.3%) according to the CIS survey of May 2007. In addition, in 2009, Almería came to occupy position number 271 in the ranking of all the teams in the world compiled annually by the IFFHS. Moreover, the club currently occupies 38th position in the all-time Primera División table; it has accumulated 280 points in the eight seasons it has spent in the Primera División to date.

In terms of sporting achievements, U.D. Almería has lived its most successful years since the start of the 21st century. It was promoted to the Primera División in the 2006-07 season and remained there for six seasons (four of them consecutively). It also reached a Copa del Rey semifinal in 2011; it was eliminated by Fútbol Club Barcelona and came within reach of what would have been the first final in its history. In its debut season in the Primera División of Spain (2007-08) it achieved its best-ever result in the Primera División (8th): it finished in a qualifying place for the UEFA Intertoto Cup, which it ultimately did not play because the former president Alfonso García Gabarrón had not entered the team in that tournament.

On 17 August 2019, VAR was used for the first time in the Segunda División of Spain. This historic event took place in the match between Unión Deportiva Almería and Albacete Balompié corresponding to the first matchday of the 2019-20 league season. The referee awarded a penalty in favor of the Almería side that he had not initially signaled, which made it 1-0 in a match that ended with a sizeable and deserved 3-0 in favor of the Indálico team.

On 2 September 2019, U.D. Almería became the first team to implement "SMARTABASE" in Spain. This advanced system is currently used in different sports by some of the most important and prestigious teams in the world, such as Liverpool FC and the Los Angeles Lakers, among others.

On 10 December 2019, U.D. Almería made history by becoming the first football team in Spain to incorporate into its stadium a double advertising board equipped with the innovative "U Televisiva" technology, a pioneering system that makes it possible to show different advertisements on the television broadcast and in the stadium in real time.

Its reserve team, called Unión Deportiva Almería B, was founded in 1997 and currently competes in Group IX of the Tercera División of Spain. The club also has a women's section, called Unión Deportiva Almería Femenino, which was founded in 2018 and currently competes in Group IV of the Primera Nacional Femenina of Spain. In addition, since 2018 the club has also had representation in LALIGA Genuine, specifically with its team U.D. Almería Genuine; it is one of only 30 clubs in Spain with representation in that competition.