FC Prishtina

Football Club Prishtina (Albanian: Klubi Futbollistik Prishtina, IPA: [ˈklubi futboɫisˈtik ˈpɾiʃtina]), commonly known as Prishtina, is a professional football club based in Pristina, Kosovo. The club plays in the Kosovo Superleague. It is the most successful domestic club.

The club was founded in 1922 under the name Kosovo. Later on their name changed to Proleter, Bashkimi, Kosova and finally Prishtina.

Football began to be played and developed in Kosovo shortly after the end of the First World War, around 1919. Many demobilized Serbian soldiers, officers, and students returning from universities in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, England, Budapest, and elsewhere brought with them an interest in the sport. One student from Samerslen College in Grenoble (France) is recorded as having brought the first football to Prishtina in 1919, a gift he had received from a doctor he had met there.

With the introduction of the first football in Prishtina, many young people began playing informally, though no organized structure existed at the time. Only friendly matches were played, primarily between school youth and the local military garrison.

As time passed, the need for a formally organized club grew stronger. In 1922, when Prishtina was a small town of roughly 16,000 inhabitants, local high school students took the initiative to form the first organized football club, named Kosovo. Although the club did not participate in official competitions due to not being registered with any sporting authority, it regularly played friendly matches. The team was composed mainly of high school students and was occasionally reinforced by soldiers from the Priština Garrison of the Yugoslav Royal Army.

These friendly matches were commonly played against other newly formed teams both within Kosovo and in nearby Macedonia.

In 1926, another football club was established in Prishtina: Građanski, which primarily gathered the town’s artisan youth. Unlike Kosova, Građanski was financially stronger and more structurally consolidated. The club took advantage of this and succeeded in registering with the Banovina Skopje Football Sub-League, although detailed records of the level of competition are not available.^[2]

In the beginning the club competed in Yugoslav lower leagues all the way until the beginning of 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.^[3]

After the end of the war the club returned to the Yugoslav league system and played for mostly in the Yugoslav Second League. FC Prishtina won in 1945 and 1946 they won the Kosovo Province Title and are the first Kosovar to do so but the success did not end there. In the 1947 season Prishtina wrote history for being one of the founder clubs in the new SFR Yugoslavia Cup in this Season. In their first ever Cup match they played against Goce Delcev from Prilep. Prishtina won this match with 1–0 and qualify for the next Round. In the second round Prishtina had a harder tie against Rabotnicki Skopje from the second League, but Prishtina did not give up and won this Match away in Skopje with 1–2 and became the first Albanian club to ever reach the round of 16 in a regional competition in their first ever Cup Season. In the round of 16 Prishtina had to play away against Partizan despite a good performance they lost this match 2–0.

Prishtina also were close to qualify for their first time in the Yugoslav First League in the season 1972–73 but they lost the playoffs games against NK Osijek from Croatia and could not Progress in the Main division. After losing in the home in Prishtina the leg with 1–2 and away with 0–1 in Osijek.

FC Prishtina was now stabilized and a scary team had been created and only its explosion was expected. The 1980–81 season was difficult both for Pristina and for the entire population of Kosovo due to the political situation that had been created. From March (1981), Dimoski will be replaced by another coach, the Hungarian from Vojvodina, Béla Pálfi (March 1981 – July 1983), who has great merit for qualifying the team in the elite and creating a great team. The team this season was forced to spend almost the entire spring season outside the city (in Kragujevac) due to the ban on sports activity in Kosovo. Prishtina with Pálfi, in the 1981/82 season finishes in 8th place. In the 1982/83 season, the white and blue team had finally started to make history and after 60 years of its creation, and after 20 years of struggling in the Second League, a generation, called Golden, was finally created that violated all in front of him, who had extraordinary leaders and an army of fans with an average of 30,000 per match.

FC Prishtina after entering the first Federal League has competed for five consecutive seasons in it. In her first year in the elite, she also played in the Central European Cup where she took second place among the four teams. In the same year, two players from Prishtina, in the same match, make their debut for the then Yugoslav national team, the strikers: Fadil Vokrri and Zoran Batrović. Meanwhile, in five years of competitions in the First League, Prishtina was led by well-known Yugoslav football names. Fuad Muzurović had been the first Pristina coach to lead the team to the highest level of the country, which had the league among the four or five strongest in Europe. Muzurović, later the coach of Bosnia and Herzegovina, had led the team from July 1983 until the same time in 1984. Then he returned in July 1985 and led the capital from Prishtina to in August 1986.

After Muzurović, the bench was taken over by the other great strategist of the former Yugoslavia, Vukašin Višnjevac, who, however, had not been so dear to some key players of the team, as he had withstood the pressure and his adventure in Prishtina had ended. in November 1984. Then, quite successfully for three months, the team was led by the Albanian coach, Ajet Shosholli. Shosholli until that time had been only the second Albanian coach, after Mensur Bajrami (January–April 1977), who had led the team. Meanwhile, the position in the table had been aggravated and the leaders of the club had been forced to find a famous coach and the solution was with Miroslav Blažević. The lease that later with the Croatian Representative reaches the third place in "France '98", contributes to the merits of the club remaining in the First League. The lease had only lasted for two months, long enough for him to remain one of the most memorable of that time. Prishtina continues for another three seasons in the collection of the best and in its ranks gravitate two other well-known strategists of the time, Milovan Đorić (October 1986 – September 1987) and Josip Duvančić (September 1987 – June 1988) with whom eventually Prishtina falls out of the league. The team had left some of its stars, some had now retired, while the tense political situation and the decline of interest of Kosovo's political and social structures had made Pristina no longer able to stay in the first federal League. With the relegation from the League, Prishtina brings together the next generation of talented people from Kosovo who are first led by another well-known name in former Yugoslav football, Milan Živadinović (July 1988 – March 1989). In the first season since the fall (1988/89) Prishtina played with minus 6 points and again fought and achieved culminating results, but did not manage to climb back into the elite.

Notes

¹ Prishtina were docked six points due to match fixing in the last round of the previous season.
² Two points for winners. If the game finished as a draw, penalty kicks were taken and only the winner gained one point. In brackets are those penalty-kick points.
³ Championship abandoned officially on 14 May 1999 due to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Due to UNMIK, FC Prishtina were able to play in the Kosovan league system only.

After Kosovo self-proclaimed independence from Serbia, FC Prishtina left the Yugoslav football league system and became part of the Independent League of Kosovo, which became the highest football division of Kosovo and would be renamed to the Football Superleague of Kosovo after the Kosovo War in 1999. As the Kosovar club with most successful results in the past and the best infrastructure, FC Prishtina won the first edition of the competition in the 1991–92 season. Afterwards, it won the competition again in the 1995–96 and 1996–97 seasons.

Since 1991, FC Prishtina has been Kosovo champion 11 times, making it the most successful Kosovar club since Kosovo left the Yugoslav football league system.^[5] Between 1945 and 1991 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.

Serbian-run FK Priština, which claimed club's pre-1991 legacy, continued to represent the city in the football league system of FR Yugoslavia.

Prishtina is an Albanian supported club with fans around Albanian communities in the Balkans and in Diaspora.^[6] The fans sing the Albanian National Anthem before every game and only affiliate with the Albanian nation and identity.^[7]

Plisat are the ultras group of Prishtina. They stand in the South part of the stadium.^[8] In the late eighties, there were quite a few small groups with different group names. It was in those years that most of the fans of Prishtina chose to identify as "Plisat". "Plisat" have never been separated from the club even during Yugoslavia's anti-Albanian policies.^[6] In addition to football, they started to follow and support the basketball club with the same fervour. As the organisation grew, it began to resemble some of the other large fan groups in the region and the rest of Europe. They also support the Albania National Team.^[9][10]

KF Prishtina competed for the Mitropa Cup finals in the 1983–84 season. Being Runner Up in this competition by a single point to Eisenstadt from Austria. Also being the first Kosovan Football side to compete in a UEFA Football competition and also the only Kosovan Football club that would reach a final in a UEFA Competition so far.

Prishtina competed in the UEFA Europa League for the first time in the 2017–18 season, entering at the first qualifying round. On 19 June 2017, in Nyon, the draw was held and Prishtina were drawn against Swedish side Norrköping.^[12] On 5 July 2018, Prishtina beat the Gibraltarian side Europa at Adem Jashari Olympic Stadium in Mitrovica and became the first Kosovan side to win a UEFA Europa League match.^[13][14]

As of 29 September 2021^[16]

As of 11 February 2026

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

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

This is a list of FC Prishtina players with senior national team appearances:^[17][18]

This is the list of coaches of FC Prishtina:^[19]

• ^[1] Esad Ejupi, 100 vjet klubi i futbollit Prishtina 1922–2022, Prishtinë, 2024.

The all-time list of football clubs that have participated in the Kosovo Superleague, prior to the 2019–2020 season. The ranking is based on the total accumulated points by Prishtina.

The following tables list FC Prishtina’s all-time record appearance makers and goalscorers since 1957, when complete club statistics began to be officially documented. The records include official matches played in the Yugoslav football system (First, Second and Third Divisions) and the Kosovo Superliga. All figures are based on the official club monograph 100 vjet klubi i futbollit Prishtina by Esad Ejupi.^[1] Updated as of 3 October 2025

Note: Leotrim Kryeziu is an active player still with the club (as of October 2025).

Note: Leotrim Kryeziu is an active player still with the club (as of October 2025).

• Official website (in Albanian and English)