AF Elbasani
The club
AF Elbasani is Akademia e Futbollit Elbasani, based in the city of Elbasan in central Albania. "AF Elbasani" is shorthand for the club's full name; the club plays in Kategoria Superiore, the Albanian top flight, and was founded on 2 August 2021.
The club is not the same institution as KF Elbasani, the historic Elbasan club that traced its own lineage back to a 1929 merger of Afërdita Elbasan and Përparimi Elbasan and passed through a long chain of names, including KS Skampa Elbasani, Bashkimi Elbasanas, KS Elbasani, KF Puna Elbasan and, from 1958 to 1991 under communist rule, KS Labinoti Elbasan, before reverting to KF Elbasani after 1991. That club won the Albanian title in 1983/84 (as Labinoti) and 2005/06 and the Albanian Cup in 1974/75 and 1991/92, but ran into financial collapse under owner Arben Laze and had its assets seized by the Directorate of Taxes in Elbasan; it was dissolved in 2022. AF Elbasani was set up separately by the Elbasan Municipality and local supporters as the city's new football institution, and Albanian and English-language sources (including Wikipedia, which flags the two clubs explicitly as "not to be confused") treat AF Elbasani and KF Elbasani as distinct clubs rather than a continuous one. Anyone cross-referencing older results or honours under the name "Elbasani" needs to check which of the two clubs is meant, since KF Elbasani's league titles, cups and 1980s-2000s European ties belong to the dissolved club, not to AF Elbasani.
AF Elbasani play at the Elbasan Arena, built in 1967 as the Labinot Stadium and later renamed Ruzhdi Bizhuta after a former player, then reconstructed in 2014; it holds 12,800 seated. The club is owned by the Bashkia Elbasan, the Elbasan municipal authority, and its nickname is Tigrat, the Tigers. The head coach is the Serbian Ivan Gvozdenović, in charge since December 2024.
Recent seasons
AF Elbasani's rise has been rapid. They won the fourth-tier Kategoria e Tretë in 2021/22, their first season, going 13-1-0 from 14 matches with 84 goals for and only 4 against. They were runners-up in Kategoria e Dytë in 2022/23 (18-4-0 from 22 matches, 58 points) to earn promotion, then won Kategoria e Parë outright in 2023/24 with 79 points from 33 matches, 24 wins, 7 draws and 2 defeats, to reach the top flight. Their first season in Kategoria Superiore, 2024/25, brought fifth place from 36 matches, 11 wins, 17 draws and 8 defeats, 40 goals scored and 38 conceded, for 50 points. In 2025/26 they finished the regular season with 17 wins, 11 draws and 8 defeats from 36 matches, 48 goals for and 37 against, then went into the championship "final four" round, from which they emerged second overall with 68 points from 39 matches in total, enough to qualify for the UEFA Conference League for the first time. Egnatia won the 2025/26 championship; Bylis and Flamurtari were relegated.
Honours and landmarks
AF Elbasani have won Kategoria e Tretë (2021/22) and Kategoria e Parë (2023/24) since their founding, and were runners-up in Kategoria e Dytë (2022/23) and, at the top level, in Kategoria Superiore (2025/26). The 2025/26 runners-up finish is the club's highest league placing to date and the result that sent them into European competition for the first time in the club's short history.
Notable scorelines
No individually notable big domestic wins or defeats for AF Elbasani were established from the sources read here beyond the season-by-season records above; the only scoreline with any detail available is the 2026/27 European tie against BATE Borisov, covered below.
European record
AF Elbasani's only European campaign to date is the 2026/27 UEFA Conference League, entered as first qualifying round opponents of FC BATE Borisov of Belarus, reached via their 2025/26 Kategoria Superiore runners-up finish. AF Elbasani drew 1-1 at home in the first leg, then lost 0-0 after extra time away, going out 4-5 on a penalty shootout; individual scorers, exact dates, attendance and referee for either leg were not established from the sources read here. Before this tie the club's entire senior UEFA record was that single pairing, two matches, no wins, two draws, one goal scored and one conceded, since AF Elbasani did not exist before August 2021 and had no earlier European history to draw on.
Head-to-head notes
AF Elbasani had no previous meetings with BATE Borisov before the 2026/27 qualifying tie, and no other head-to-head pattern against a recurring European or notable domestic opponent was established from the sources read here.
Quotes
No directly quoted material was confirmed from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Ivan Gvozdenović remains head coach. AF Elbasani's 2026/27 European campaign is already over, ending in the first qualifying round of the Conference League on penalties against BATE Borisov as described above.
Domestically, AF Elbasani have played one match of the new Kategoria Superiore season, a 1-1 draw, leaving them on 1 point and in second place in the very early table as of the most recent update found. Further fixture-by-fixture detail on the 2026/27 league season and any summer transfer business were not confirmed from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AF_Elbasani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KF_Elbasani https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/KF_Elbasani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KF_Egnatia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BATE_Borisov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025%E2%80%9326_Kategoria_Superiore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Kategoria_Superiore
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.