Saipa F.C.

In 1989, SAIPA Company decided to start its own football team. They purchased a team playing in the 4th division of Tehran's city league, and renamed it Saipa F.C. After back to back promotions starting in the first year, the Karaj based club was playing in the 2nd division by 1991. That same year they purchased the Shipping Department team's shares, and participated in the 1st division of Tehran's local league. In that year they won the Tehran city championship as well as the Tehran Super Cup, thus attaining the right to play in Iran's top league at the time, the Azadegan League.

In their first year in the Azadegan League they won the championship, as well as the Hazfi Cup. They also won the league championship again in 1994. The team was relegated into the second division in 1995, but were promoted again in the following year. Since their second promotion to the top tier, the club has remained in the middle of the league table.

By 2001, the club's on-field performance remained stable, occupying mid-table position most years. Shortly following Iranian goalkeeper Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh's retirement, he was linked with the head coaching job at Saipa. It never materialized, but the club signed another Iranian, Ali Daei in a move from Saba Battery. The club had finished third in the previous season and now, with Werner Lorant as a coach, the team aimed to work for the title. Shortly after the season began though, Littbarski was fired and Ali Daei took on the role of player/coach. Daei scored the winner in the title winning game. Daei extended his contract, this time as a full-time coach. He was appointed head coach of the national team but kept his role at Saipa until the end of the season.

Following the title winning year which saw the team play in the AFC Champions League, Saipa turned back into the mid-table places of the league again. Before the start of the 2015–16 Persian Gulf Pro League season Saipa announced they had moved their home city from Karaj to nearby Tehran.

The table below chronicles the achievements of Saipa in various competitions since 1993.

• Iran Pro League/First Division
  • Champions: 1993–94, 1994–95, 2006–07
• Hazfi Cup
  • Winners: 1993–94

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No.	Pos.	Nation	Player
27	DF	IRN	Arash Mehri BabadiU23
28	MF	IRN	Mohammad Hossein Babagoli
30	MF	IRN	Mohammadreza Moslemi JavidU23
31	MF	IRN	Pouya Mokhtari U23
35	MF	IRN	Alireza Safari U19
36	MF	IRN	Mohammadtaha Tabatabataei U21
38	MF	IRN	Mehdi Goudarzi U19
44	MF	IRN	Reza Faraji
47	MF	IRN	Morteza Hosseinzadeh
48	MF	IRN	Mehdi KashefiU23
70	FW	IRN	Shahin Balijani
72	MF	IRN	Mehdi Hanafi
77	MF	IRN	Mehrshad SeydiU23
80	DF	IRN	Pouria BaliU23
97	DF	IRN	Mehdi BayatU25
3	{{{pos}}}	IRN	Mohammad hadavand Mirzaei

Staff[1]	Name
Head coach	Faraz Kamalvand
First team coach	Asghar Maziar
Assistant coach	Mehdi Zarei Kazem Borjlou
Goalkeeping coach	Farshad Bakhtiarizadeh
Fitness coach	Ali Asghar GhorbanaliPour
Doctor	Mahyar Mortazavi
Analyzer	Mohammad Palizvan
Technical Manager	Asghar Hajiloo
B team Manager	Kianoush Rahmati

The following managers had managed Saipa since 1993:

Name	Period	Trophies
Bijan Zolfagharnasab	1993–97	2 Azadegan League, Hazfi Cup
Nasrollah Abdollahi	1997–00
Behtash Fariba	2000–01
Hamid Alidoosti	2001–02
Giovanni Mei	2002–03
Mohammad Mayeli Kohan	2003–04
Bijan Zolfagharnasab	2004–06
Werner Lorant	2006
Ali Daei	2006–08	1 Persian Gulf Cup
Pierre Littbarski	2008
Mohammad Mayeli Kohan	2008–11
Majid Saleh	2011–12
Mojtaba Taghavi	2012–13
Engin Firat	2013–14
Majid Jalali	2014–16
Hossein Faraki	2016–17
Ali Daei	2017–19
Ebrahim Sadeghi	2019–21
Faraz Kamalvand	2021

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Saipa FC.

• Official website (in Persian)