Olympique Lyon

Olympique de Lyon —officially in French Olympique Lyonnais (French pronunciation: /ɔlɛ̃pik ljɔnɛ/)—, also known as OL, is a football club based in the metropolis of Lyon, France. It currently competes in Ligue 1. It is one of the most popular teams and the fourth most decorated in the history of French football, with seven Ligue 1 championships. It plays its home matches at the Parc Olympique Lyonnais stadium, with a capacity of 59,186 spectators.

The club Lyon Olympique Universitaire (LOU, Olympic University of Lyon) was formed in 1896, according to many supporters and sports historians, but was not established nationally as a professional club. 1950 saw the official foundation of Olympique Lyonnais, by dissidents from LOU who wanted to make a nationally competitive professional club in Lyon. Its most successful period has been the 2000s. The club won its first Ligue 1 championship in 2002, beginning a record run of seven consecutive national titles. Lyon also holds in its honours list eight Trophées des Champions, five Coupes de France, one Coupe de la Ligue, and three Ligue 2 championships. It has appeared in the UEFA Champions League on eleven occasions and during the 2009–10 season reached the semi-finals of the competition for the first time after three previous appearances in the quarter-finals.

Lyon was a member of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs and is a founder member of its successor, the European Club Association. The president of Lyon is Jean-Michel Aulas. The club is managed by Laurent Blanc.

OL is one of the most popular clubs in France. Around 11% of the country's population supports the club, which is about 7 million people. It is therefore the third most followed team in France, behind Olympique de Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain respectively. It was also the richest club in the country in the 2008–09 season, in which it generated annual revenues of 139.6 million euros according to the accountants Deloitte. It has a women's team (OL Lyonnes), whose successes at domestic level are greater than those of its male counterpart, being the most decorated club in France, winning 18 league titles (a record), 10 Coupes de France (a record) and 3 French Super Cups (a record), and in Europe its successes are even greater, being crowned champion on 8 occasions, 5 of them consecutive, of the UEFA Women's Champions League (2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020), making it the most decorated club in the top continental competition. This made the women's team a giant at European and world level.