Al Riyadi Club Beirut
Lebanese basketball team
Al Riyadi Club Beirut (Arabic: نادي الرياضي بيروت, lit. 'Sporting Club Beirut'), commonly known simply as Al Riyadi, is a multi-sports club team based in Manara, a district in Beirut, Lebanon. Founded in 1934, the multi-sports club, which is mainly known for their basketball program, also plays ping-pong, martial arts, and other sports.
Al Riyadi is the most successful basketball team in Lebanese history, and one of the best in Asian basketball. Competing in the Lebanese Basketball League, Al Riyadi is the most decorated Lebanese basketball club, with 38 league titles, a joint-record three Basketball Champions League Asia titles, and five Arab Club Championships. Nicknamed "the Yellow Castle", basketball team plays its home games at the Saeb Salam Arena. Their rivalry with Sagesse, dubbed the Beirut derby, is the most anticipated basketball game in Lebanon.
History
Al Riyadi Club was founded in 1934 by Hussein Sejaan, Hassan Ladki, Fouad Zantout, Youssef Shaker, Mustafa Shaker, Zouheir Yatim, Helmi Chehab, and Wafic Nsouli, who formed the first basketball team.
The team played its first game against a foreign team in 1947, when Al Riyadi faced Turkish club Galatasaray, and lost the game 33–39. The game was attended by the first President of Lebanon Bechara El Khoury.
Al Riyadi launched its first women's basketball team in 1965.
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This entry incorporates text from “Al Riyadi Club Beirut” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.