FC Prishtina

History

The club was founded in 1922 under the name Gajret. Later on their name changed to Proleter, Kosova and finally FC Prishtina. During the period the club participated in the Yugoslav league system the club was known in its Serbo-Croatian form, FK Priština (Serbian Cyrillic: ФК Приштина).

Yugoslav period

In the beginning the club competed in Yugoslav lower leagues all the way until the beginning of the World War II when the region was annexed to Albania. In 1942 Prishtina competed in the North group of the 1942 Albanian Championship finishing in fourth and bottom place of their group. After the end of the war the club returned to the Yugoslav league system and played for most time in the Yugoslav Second League.

Its most successful period was from 1983 to 1988 when it was a member of the highest football division in Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav First League. During those years they traded in mid table, boasting a good home record, including one of their most memorable victories against Red Star Belgrade in 1983. That was the "Golden Generation" of Priština with players such as Sukri Pacarada, Xhevdet Muriqi, Mensur Nexhipi, Skender Shengyli, Kujtim Shala, Fadil Vokrri, Fadil Muriqi, Zoran Batrović, Sahit Kelmendi, Faruk Domi, Faton Domi, Agim Cana, Abdyl Bellopoja, Gani Llapashtica, Kosta Lalić, Ramadan Cimilli, Favzi Rrama, Edmond Rugova, Mehana Ramadani, Danilo Mandić, Ljubiša P. Trajković, Petre Gruevski, Neshat Zhavelli, Rifat Mehinović, Zoran Martinović, coaches Maxhuni and Miroslav Blažević, that made the club become almost unbeatable when playing home.

This period started after FC Prishtina became champions of the 1982–83 Yugoslav Second League, thus archiving promotion to Yugoslav highest level. In the following season, 1983–84, they finished 8th and they represented Yugoslavia in the 1983–84 Mitropa Cup. In a 4 team group tournament they managed to lose just one match out of six; however, they finished in second place, only one point behind the winners, Austrian team SC Eisenstadt.

FC Prishtina vs

During the following seasons Prishtina managed to stay in mid table in the Yugoslav top tier all the way until 1988 when they were relegated back to the Second League. They returned to the top flight 4 years later to play in the 1992–93 First League of FR Yugoslavia, which then consisted of clubs only from Serbia and Montenegro. However, the club finished 17th and was relegated. After that, FC Prishtina played in the Second League of FR Yugoslavia until 1997 when they returned to the top flight after winning the Group East, one of the two subdivisions of the 1996–97 Second League of FR Yugoslavia. FC Prishtina played in the First League of FR Yugoslavia for the following 2 seasons, although the 1998–99 season was interrupted in late March by the NATO bombing and the Kosovo War.

¹Prishtina were docked 6 points due to match fixing in the last round of the previous season

²2-points for winners. If the game finished as a draw, penalty kicks were taken and only the winner gained 1 point. In brackets are those penalty-kick points.

³ Championship abandoned officially on 14 May 1999 due to the NATO attacks on FR Yugoslavia. Due to UNMIK, FC Prishtina back to play in Kosovar league system only.

After 1999

After Kosovo became under United Nations Administration Mission, FC Prishtina left the Serbian football league system and became part of the Kosovar Superliga (Reiffeisen Superliga) which became the highest football division of Kosovo. As the club from Kosovo with most successful results in the past and the best infrastructure, FC Prishtina became dominant in the early years of the competition, and won the first two editions, in 1999–00 and 2000–01. Afterwards, it was champion in 2003–04 and twice again won two titles in a row in 2007–08, 2008–09 and 2011–12, 2012–13.

Since 1999, FC Prishtina has been 6 times Kosovo champion until 2011 being the club with most league titles. Between 1945 and 1999 the Kosovar league was a regional league of the Yugoslav league system, and FC Prishtina did not gather many titles in that league because it usually competed in higher national levels.

Supporters

The supporters of the club are called Plisat.

Honours

Players

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

Notable players

This is a list of FC Prishtina players with senior national team appearances:

Coaches

This is the list of coaches of FC Prishtina: