Red Lions F.C.

Full name	Taipei Red Lions Football Club
Nickname(s)	The Lions
Founded	1983 (1983)
Dissolved	2021 (2021)
Ground	Taipei Municipal Stadium New Taipei
Capacity	20,000
Owner	Taipei Red Lions Association
League	Taiwan Second Division Football League
Home colours Away colours

Taipei Red Lions F.C. were a professional football club from Taipei, last participating in Taiwan Football Premier League. ^[1] Red Lions has won two Taiwan Football Premier League promotion tournaments, six Taipei International Football Leagues, one Businessmen Football League, one Taipei Super Cup and several local and international short tournaments.

Taipei Red Lions football team was founded in 1983 as the amateur team from Tianmu, Shilin District.

In 1989 Red Lions were one of the founding members of the Businessmen Football League,^[2] the top amateur league in Taiwan for many years.

In 2005 Red Lions were one of the founding members of Taipei International Football League,^[3] a highly inclusive tournament suitable for players of all ages and nationalities that has become the strongest annual amateur league in Taiwan.

In 2017 Red Lions signed a cooperation agreement with Taicheng Football Academy^[4] to train world-class football players and teams in the most systematic and creative way to ensure that the team has the highest level of football.

The outstanding performance of Taipei Red Lions in the amateur league and the cooperation agreement signed with Taicheng Football Academy motivated the team to participate in Taiwan First Division Qualifiers in 2017, winning the tournament and the right to join CTFA top level league in 2018.

In 2018 Red Lions signed a cooperation agreement with University of Taipei^[5] to foster the best young talents in Taiwan as international-level professional football players and create real benefits for future generations.

History

Under their new name of Taicheng Lions, the club qualified for the 2018 TFPL Qualification Tournament. A 3–2 victory over Ming Chuan University was followed by a 1–1 draw and penalty shootout defeat to Tainan City, meaning that they had to defeat fellow newcomers Bear Bro Ilan to assure themselves of qualification. A resounding 17–0 victory gained them the first position in the qualifiers and ensured that Taicheng Lions would compete in the Taiwan Football Premier League in 2018.^[6]

The success of the project quickly catches the attention of the football community and many of the staff and players from Taicheng Lions were recruited for teams in China, Spain or around Taiwan. The team had to rebuilt the project in 2019 with new youth talent. In 2019 Red Lions and Taicheng merged and the club decided to use the same Red Lions name for all its teams. Once again at the end of 2019 season many players were transferred to teams in Chile, Cambodia and Taiwan, making them one of the most prominent players' developer in the island.

The new club was formed in 2021 after the Zhanyi Group took over the license of Red Lions. The new owners opted to relaunch the club as a new entity, branding the new side Flight Skywalkers.

Symbols

Final squad

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

No. Pos. Nation Player 2 DF  TAI Yiyou Wang 3 DF  TAI Kai WenTian 7 FW  TAI Jack Lin 11 FW  TAI Youlin Chen 12 MF  TAI Chenglin Song 13 MF  TAI Wenyan Qin 19 FW  TAI Kuanheng Lin 20 DF  TAI Pingqi Hsie

No. Pos. Nation Player 23 MF  TAI Yusheng Pan 24 MF  TAI Fuseng Hsu 25 GK  TAI Shicheng Hong 28 MF  TAI Xiangyi Wang 51 GK  TAI Kuanpei Lee 66 DF  TAI Mike Zheng 69 MF  TAI Zhengru Tsai 99 FW  TAI Junlong Yang

Final staff

Coaching
Head coach	Robert Iwanicki
Assistant coach
	Adrian Espinal
Sports director	Francisco Arce
Fitness
Fitness coach	Nicole Tang
Medical
Head of medical	Junta Chen
Administrative
Secretary	Carolina Chen
Media manager	Yin Liang

Honours

References