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| Full name | Association Sportive des Employés de Commerce Mimosas | ||
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| Nicknames | Les Mimos (The Mimos)[1] Les Jaunes et Noirs (The Yellow and Blacks) | ||
| Founded | 29 April 1948; 77 years ago (1948-04-29) | ||
| Ground | Robert Champroux Stadium | ||
| Capacity | 10,000 | ||
| Chairman | Cédric Kouamé | ||
| Manager | Julien Chevalier | ||
| League | Ligue 1 | ||
| 2024–25 | Ligue 1, 2nd of 16 | ||
| Website | www | ||
 Current season | |||
ASEC Mimosas (short forAssociation Sportive des Employés de Commerce Mimosas;lit. 'Mimosas Commerce Employees' Sporting Association') is an Ivorian professionalfootball club based inAbidjan. The club is also known asASEC Abidjan, especially in international club competitions. Founded in 1948, they are the most successful side in Ivorian football, having won theIvorian Premier Division 29 times and the1998 CAF Champions League. In addition, ASEC's youth academy, known asAcadémie MimoSifcom, has produced a number of famous players predominantly based in top foreign leagues, includingBonaventure Kalou,Didier Zokora,Emmanuel Eboué,Bakari Koné,Gervinho,Salomon Kalou,Romaric,Boubacar Barry,Didier Ya Konan,Kolo Touré,Yaya Touré andOdilon Kossounou, all of whom have played internationally.
ASEC Mimosas was founded on 29 April 1948 by a group of businessmen from Western Africa, Lebanon and France. The club originates from a place calledSol-béni (French for Holy Ground) inAbidjan-M'pouto, which today is the name of their training complex.[2] In the following years, ASEC competed in the Championship of Abidjan together with their eternal rivalAfrica Sports, with their first professional coach being FrenchmanGuy Fabre in 1954. Fabre also shaped the club's philosophy ofque les enfants s'amusent... en jouant au football (may the children have fun... by playing football).[3]
After Independence in 1960, ASEC won its first title in the newly foundPremier Division in 1963. In the early 1970s, ASEC rose to power by winning the league title 5 out of 6 possible times from 1970 to 1975. This was the era of players asLaurent Pokou andEustache Manglé. In the next years, it wasAfrica Sports who dominated the league, with ASEC winning only once in 1980.
On 19 November 1989, advocateRoger Ouégnin was elected as club president. In his wish to professionalize the club, he introducedPhilippe Troussier as coach from 1989 until 1992. This was the time for ASEC to return to old strength, winning the championship six consecutive times between 1990 and 1995. ASEC also provided the backbone of the national team that won the1992 African Cup of Nations, including key members of the side such asBen Badi,Donald-Olivier Sié andBasile Aka Kouamé. After having qualified for the semi-finals already five times before, ASEC finally won the CAF Champions League in 1998. For some players, this was the chance to sign for a European club, for example team captainTchiressoua Guel, who joinedOlympique de Marseille afterwards. A few years later, ASEC beat their own record by winning the league seven consecutive times between 2000 and 2006.
In 1993, former French national playerJean-Marc Guillou joined the club staff as director, manager and financier. Together with chairmanRoger Ouégnin, he founded theAcadémie MimoSifcom atSol Béni. In the following weeks, they started to scout amongst thousands of young kids to form the first promotions to receive coaching and education. In 1999, following ASECs success in the 1998 Champions League, ASEC facedEspérance Sportive de Tunis in theCAF Super Cup. But most of the old players were aged, had left the club or at least wanted to. So Guillou and Ouégnin decided to replace the old squad with the first products of the academy, most of them only aged around 17/18 years. The owners protested against this measure and Espérance's presidentSlim Chiboub called it a "scandal to be playing against children". However, the young ASEC squad surprisingly beat their opponents by 3 to 1 goals and brought in the second big international title for their club.[4] Amongst others,Boubacar 'Copa' Barry,Kolo Touré,Didier Zokora,Gilles Yapi Yapo,Siaka Tiéné,Abdoulaye Djire,Venance Zézé, andAruna Dindane were part of that squad.
When Guillou became manager of Belgian sideK.S.K. Beveren in 2001, many of the academy's players joined him. As a result, the Belgian team consisted mainly out of Ivorian players for several years. These could use Beveren as a chance to show their talent to top European clubs. Players asYaya Touré,Arthur Boka,Emmanuel Eboué,Gervinho,Romaric andCopa all had their time in Beveren. This lasted until 2006, when Guillou and Beveren broke up with ASEC Mimosas.ASEC then linked up withCharlton Athletic.[5]
The following clubs are affiliated with ASEC:
ASECs youth academy has been described[by whom?] as the crown jewel of African football. The academy started byRoger Ouégnin andJean-Marc Guillou in 1993 at ASEC's training complex has since produced many international stars. The student-athletes are given an education, for which they take classes in math, history, geography, physics, French, English, and Spanish. The students live in dorms during the week and have two training sessions a day. They play matches on Saturday and get health care and tutoring.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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 Julien Chevalier | Manager |
 Felix Kouadjo | Assistant coach |
| Fabrice Jocelyn N'Guessan | Assistant coach |
| Alama Bada Soumahoro | Assistant coach |
| Akassou Koutouan | Recruitment Cell |
| Dr. Yves Kouamé | Senior Physician |
| Randriatsiderana Zaka | Physiotherapist |
| Christian Boua Gbizie | Physiotherapist |
| Patrick Martial Adou | Physiotherapist |
| Kore Stone Logbo | Caregiver |
| Patrice Volibi | Masseur |
| Samake Siaka | General Steward |
The club's colours are yellow and black; the badge displays a Mimosa. Together with their biggest rivalAfrica Sports National, they contest the most important ivorian football derby. These two are also the only clubs allowed to play their home games inStade Félix Houphouët-Boigny.
ASEC has, after own declarations,[9] more than 8,000,000 fans inIvory Coast and 15,000,000 in the whole region. The fans are called theActionnaires. They are organised in theCNACO (Comité National d`Action et de Coordination, = National Committee for Action and Coordination), which has 40,000 members and consists out of 350 commissions.
ASEC holds the world record for unbeaten league games, racking up 108 league and domestic cup games without loss between 1989 and 1994 before they were eventually beaten bySO Armee; four more than the unbeaten run ofSteaua București in the late 1980s.[10]
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