Foundation and development The Iraq Football Association was founded on 8 October 1948 and within its first week it had decided to hold a national knockout cup called the Iraq Football Association Cup for clubs and institute-representative teams. The
tournament kicked off on 21 January 1949 and culminated in
Sharikat Naft Al-Basra winning the final on 7 April. For the next 26 years, cup tournaments for clubs and institutions were played at a regional level (such as the
Iraq FA Baghdad Cup which was played in the 1973–74 season) until the national knockout cup competition returned as a clubs-only competition in 1975 as the Iraq Cup.
Al-Shaab Stadium was chosen by the Iraq FA to host the cup finals as it was able to accommodate the large number of spectators in the capital city. The first club to win the
double was
Al-Zawraa, winning the
1975–76 Iraqi National League and the
1975–76 Iraq FA Cup. Overall, Al-Zawraa have eight doubles while
Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya have three,
Al-Rasheed have two, and
Al-Talaba and
Al-Shorta each have one. It was not held again until the FA decided to hold it in the
2015–16 season. This time, the cup was not cancelled, although a large number of Premier League teams withdrew from the competition. The
2016 Iraq FA Cup Final was the first Iraq FA Cup final held for 13 years, and was played between Baghdad rivals Al-Zawraa and Al-Quwa Al-Jawiya with the latter winning 2–0. In the first edition of the tournament, there were 25 teams; by the
2021–22 season, there was an all-time high of 168 teams in the tournament.
Al-Minaa are the only team to have participated in every edition of the tournament since 1948–49.
Cup runs and giant killings Lower division teams have knocked out top-flight sides on numerous occasions. In the cup's first season in
1948–49, Baghdad top-flight side Wizarat Al-Maarif lost 3–2 to second-tier team Al-Tayour Al-Zarqaa in the second round. In the
1977–78 edition of the cup, the second team of
Al-Tayaran (Al-Tayaran B), who played in the
second-tier, eliminated
Al-Jaish, who finished in fourth place in the
1977–78 Iraqi National League, from the first round of the cup with a 1–0 win. In the same edition,
Al-Zawraa were defeated by second-tier team
Al-Bahri in the quarter-finals, 2–1. In the
1989–90 edition,
Al-Rasheed, who had won the Premier League in each of the past three seasons and the FA Cup in two of the past three seasons, were defeated by second-tier club
Al-Tijara 3–2 on aggregate in the Round of 16. In the
1992–93 edition, Al-Tijara pulled off another shock by defeating Al-Shorta in the first round, 2–1, and they also defeated another top-flight team in Al-Jaish in the Round of 16 with the same result. The
2016–17 Iraq FA Cup saw two major upsets in the Round of 32 as
Al-Naft lost 3–2 at home to second-tier club
Al-Sinaa and
Al-Shorta lost 3–1 at home to second-tier club
Al-Jaish. == Trophy ==