Volgar FC

Full name	Volgar Football Club
Founded	1925; 96 years ago (1925)
Ground	Central Stadium, Astrakhan
Capacity	21,500
Owner	Astrakhan Oblast
CEO	Andrei Sharokhin
Manager	Vitali Panov
League	FNL
2020–21	13th
Website	Club website
Home colours Away colours

Volgar FC (Russian: Футбольный Клуб "Волгарь") is an association football club based in Astrakhan, Russia. They play in the Russian Football National League.

History

The club has been known under following names:

• Pishchevik (food industry worker) (1925−1958)
• Trud (labour) (1958–59)
• Volgar (1960–94) (2012–)^[1]
• Volgar-Gazprom (1995–2007), (2010–2012)
• Volgar-Gazprom-2 (2007–10)

Pishchevik played in the Second Group of the Soviet League. Trud (and later Volgar) played in the Class B (1958, 1960–1967), in Class A, Group 2 (1968–1969), in Class A, Group 1 (1970), Soviet First League (1971), Soviet Second League (1972–1990), Soviet Second League B (1991). In 1992 Volgar entered the Russian Second League, played in the Third League in 1994 (finished top and were promoted), returned to the Second League in 1995 and stayed until 1998. In 1998 Volgar-Gazprom were promoted and in 1999 they started playing in the Russian First Division. With the exception of the relegation for the 2004 season, Volgar-Gazprom had been in the First Division until 2006. The club was denied the professional licence and thus relegated to amateur level in 2007. Another club was organized called FC Volgar-Gazprom-2. The new club advanced to the Russian First Division for the 2009 season.

After the 2017–18 season, the club experienced financial difficulties and decided to be voluntarily relegated to the third-tier PFL.^[2]

On 15 May 2020, the 2019–20 PFL season was abandoned due to COVID-19 pandemic in Russia. As Volgar was leading in their PFL zone at the time, they were promoted to the second-tier FNL for the 2020–21 season.^[3]

Current squad

As of 16 June 2021,^[4] according to the FNL website.

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

No. Pos. Nation Player 2 DF  RUS Maksim Tyulin 4 DF  RUS Roman Loktionov 7 MF  RUS Aleksei Pavlishin 10 FW  RUS Yuri Pugachyov 11 MF  RUS Aleksandr Bolonin 14 MF  RUS Andrei Zenin 19 DF  RUS Yelisey Krivokhizhin 21 DF  RUS Svyatoslav Shabanov 28 FW  RUS Mikhail Nesterov 29 MF  RUS Artur Karpov 30 GK  RUS Dmitri Saganovich 69 DF  RUS Danila Kozlov (on loan from Torpedo Moscow) 71 FW  RUS Aleksandr Butenko 72 DF  RUS Daniil Gorovykh

No. Pos. Nation Player 88 GK  RUS Daniil Stratan 95 FW  RUS Artyom Pogosov 97 DF  RUS Albert Gabarayev — GK  RUS Oleg Smirnov — GK  RUS Vladislav Yampolsky — DF  RUS Diyego Malaniya — DF  RUS Nikita Pechyonkin — MF  RUS Viktor Demyanov — MF  RUS Ilya Gomanyuk (on loan from Dynamo Moscow) — MF  RUS Nikita Muromsky — FW  RUS Aleksei Bayev — FW  RUS Dmitri Lesnikov — FW  RUS Ilya Stefanovich — FW  RUS Artyom Yusupov (on loan from Ural Yekaterinburg)

Notable past players

Had international caps for their respective countries. Players whose name is listed in bold represented their countries while playing for Volgar.