SKODA Xanthi FC
A.O. Xanthi was a football club that was formed in 1967 by the involuntary merger of Aspida Xanthi and Orpheus Xanthi.
A.O. Xanthi becomes SKODA Xanthi F.C. and back
In 1991 and for the first time in Greek football history a big company would fully sponsor a team. « Sponsor» ... Almost unknown and yet new, not only for the city of Xanthi, Thrace, but also for the whole Greek sporting world, since, till then, it was something taking place only in Europe. The VIAMAR S.A., this big company, took over the team. So «Xanthi» became «SKODA XANTHI». They signed the agreement on 10th of October 1991 and they looked ahead with hope. The results of this «pioneer» agreement, at least for Greek football, were soon evident. The help the team got to its financial problem was more than generous. On 1st of June 2016 the club changed it’s name back to A.O. Xanthi.
Having solved their major problem, they were soon excellent organized, with money available, they had important transfers for the team. This proved to be quite fruitful in the near future.
In 1992-1993 «SKODA XANTHI» finished at the 8th place, impressing everybody in the championship. All fans believed that it was a great team from the province and at the same time a promising team for Greek football.
Big clubs were highly interested in young talented players of the team. Marinos Ouzounidis was the first to be given to Panathinaikos in 1992, then Nikos Kostenoglou to AEK (1994), Christos Maladenis (1995) and Triantafillos Maheridis (1996) to the same team, Zisis Vryzas (1997) to PAOK. Everybody really wanted to have footballers from «SKODA XANTHI». Kelvin Sebwe (1998) went to AEK, Paraskevas Antzas and Luciano De Souza to Olympiakos in summer 1998 and Akis Zikos to AEK. In 1999 Stelios Venetidis was in PAOK, Christos Patsatzoglou signed for Olympiakos.