The Umm al-Ma'arik Championship (Arabic: بطولة أم المعارك, lit. 'Mother of all Battles Championship'), known as the Baghdad Championship (Arabic: بطولة بغداد) in its last edition, and also referred to as the Iraqi Elite Cup, was an annual football competition in men's domestic Iraqi football that was usually held at the beginning of each season. It was founded in the 1991–92 season, and its last edition was in the 2003–04 season.
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The top eight teams of the previous Iraqi Premier League season entered the competition, with the exception of the first and third editions, where the top six teams of the league entered.[1] The teams were split into two groups, and the top two teams from each group advanced to the semi-finals. The winners would contest the final, and the losers would play for third place.
Although the tournament was one of the four major domestic trophies attainable by top-flight teams at the time, it was perceived by larger clubs as being of a lower priority to the league championship and the Iraq FA Cup. In the first edition, the winners received a 7k IQD prize money, while the runners-up received 5k IQD. In the second edition, because of the economical changes that accrued on the dinar, the winners were given 150k IQD and the runners-up were given 100k IQD.[3]
The idea of this tournament was requested by the administration of Al-Talaba SC to the Iraq Football Association and it was to put the top six teams of the 1990–91 Iraqi National League in a single-elimination competition, because of the lack of Iraqi competitions other than the Iraqi National League and the Iraq FA Cup. The Iraq FA accepted the request on 24 August 1991, and put up a committee to administrate the competition, which decided to name the tournament as the Umm al-Ma'arik Championship (referring to the name that Saddam Hussein referred to the Gulf War as)[4] and to make 2 September the opening date. Over 55,000 spectators came to Al-Shaab Stadium, a ground that could only hold 50,000 at the time, to watch the cup final between Al-Zawraa and Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, which ended with a 3–1 win for Al-Zawraa.[5] After the first edition of the competition that was set up by Al-Talaba, the Iraq Football Association adopted the competition due to its promising reception from fans, and increased the number of participating teams from six to eight.[1]
The tournament was criticised for containing only the top eight teams of the league, because it was thought that Iraqi football needed another competition other than the Iraq FA Cup that allowed clubs from lower divisions to participate. In almost every single edition of the cup, three of the four Baghdad Derby clubs (Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya, Al-Shorta, Al-Talaba and Al-Zawraa) finished in the top four, while in the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons, all of them finished in the top four.[1][6] All of the four Baghdad Derby teams have won the title three times.
Due to the end of the rule of the former president Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the Iraq Football Association decided to change the competition's name from Umm al-Ma'arik Championship to Baghdad Championship due to the former name's resemblance to the Gulf War. It was named the Baghdad Championship because all of the competition's matches were played in Baghdad, being divided between Al-Shorta Stadium, Al-Karkh Stadium, Al-Zawraa Stadium, and Al-Sinaa Stadium. It ended with Al-Zawraa winning the championship.[6] This was the first and last edition of the Baghdad Championship, as the tournament was discontinued after that season. Since then, it has often been referred to as the Iraqi Elite Cup due to the fact that it was contested between the best eight teams in the country each year.
