Rivers United Football Club is a Nigerian professional football club based in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, that participates in the Nigerian Professional Football League, the highest level of domestic Nigerian football. The club was formed by the merger of Sharks F.C. and Dolphins F.C. in 2016.
Rivers United FC has remained in the top flight since its first season.
Rivers United was founded in 2016 after the Rivers state government got permission to merge Dolphins FC and Sharks FC. Both clubs were run by the state government and were experiencing financial difficulty. Sharks were relegated to the First Division in 2015 while Dolphins had barely escaped relegation after drawing their final match. Rivers United’s crest contains both a shark and a dolphin as a result of the merge.
The club finished second in the 2016 Nigerian Premier League which qualified them for the 2017 CAF Champions League for the first time.
