Volgar FC

Full name	Volgar Football Club
Founded	1960; 63 years ago (1960)
Ground	Central Stadium, Astrakhan
Capacity	21,500
Owner	Astrakhan Oblast
CEO	Andrey Nikitin[1]
Manager	Andranik Babayan
League	Russian First League
2021–22	16th
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 First League.

History

The club has been known under following names:

• Pishchevik (food industry worker) (1925−1958)
• Trud (labour) (1958–59)
• Volgar (1960–94) (2012–)^[2]
• 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

Current squad

As of 21 February 2023, according to the Russian First League 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 1 GK  RUS Vladislav Yampolsky 2 DF  RUS Danila Vedernikov (on loan from Rostov) 4 DF  RUS Roman Loktionov 5 MF  BLR Ilya Raschenya 6 DF  RUS Nikita Pechyonkin 7 MF  RUS Aleksei Pavlishin 8 MF  RUS Denis Talalay 10 MF  RUS Valeri Tsarukyan (on loan from Fakel Voronezh) 11 MF  RUS Aleksandr Bolonin 13 FW  RUS Aleksandr Butenko 15 FW  RUS Mark Polushin 17 FW  RUS Dmitri Lesnikov 19 FW  RUS Vladislav Bragin 20 MF  RUS Danila Smirnov 21 DF  RUS Artyom Filippov 22 DF  RUS Ivan Khomukha

No. Pos. Nation Player 23 FW  RUS Denis Timokhin 24 FW  RUS Gunashgadzhi Kudbudinov 25 MF  RUS Denis Tkachuk 29 MF  RUS Kirill Pluzhnikov 30 GK  RUS Dmitri Saganovich 31 MF  RUS Aleksandr Nosov 34 DF  BLR Alyaksey Hawrylovich 44 MF  RUS Artur Gilyazetdinov 47 FW  RUS Kirill Kosarev 69 DF  RUS Danila Kozlov (on loan from Torpedo Moscow) 72 FW  RUS Kamil Mullin (on loan from Rubin Kazan) 77 DF  RUS Yelisey Krivokhizhin 78 FW  RUS Danil Lipovoy (on loan from Krylia Sovetov Samara) 90 FW  RUS Artyom Delkin 99 GK  RUS Oleg Smirnov

Out on loan

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

No. Pos. Nation Player — MF  RUS Artur Karpov (at Kaluga)

Notable past players

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