APOEL was founded back in 1926 when a group of people, with a common vision, met and set the foundations for creating a football club that would represent all the Greeks of the capital and whose base would be in Nicosia. The meeting took place at a traditional confectionary, owned by Charalambos Hadjioannou, down town in Ledra Street and the first president of the club was Giorgos Poulias.

Initially, the name given to the team was P.O.E.L. standing for Podosfairikos Omilos Ellinon Lefkosias (Football Club of the Greeks of Nicosia) but after two years (in 1928) the then board of the team decided to extend its activities and include all kind of sports, changing the team’s name into A.P.O.E.L. with the A standing for Athletic.

In 1934, APOEL played a constructive role and helped immensely in setting up the Cyprus Football Association and was one of the founding members. Two years later APOEL celebrated its first championship title of the official Cyprus football league, the first of many trophies APOEL would celebrate in the years ahead.

Also in the early 1970s we had other remarkable triumphs. In 1973 the domestic double was achieved with coach Panos Markovic. More importantly in the following year we became the first Cypriot team that avoided relegation in the Greek National Football League (Until the mid 1970s the champion team in Cyprus played in the Greek Football League the next year and we were the first team to survive the Greek Football League without getting relegated).