FK Panevėžys
Also written as FK Panevezys.
The club
FK Panevėžys were established at the beginning of 2015, in the Lithuanian city of Panevėžys, to fill the gap left by FK Ekranas, the city's previous senior club. Ekranas had won seven Lithuanian championships between 1992-93 and 2012 but failed to meet the financial licensing criteria for the 2015 A Lyga season and were declared bankrupt; a revived Ekranas has played on in Lithuania's lower divisions since 2020, but that is a separate club from FK Panevėžys and should not be confused with it. FK Panevėžys is the city's current senior club and has no other same-name or name-alike rival from Panevežys in the modern A Lyga.
The new club started life in the second-tier I Lyga, finishing eighth in its debut 2015 campaign, and won the I Lyga title in 2018 to reach the top flight for the first time in 2019. Home matches are played at the Aukštaitija Stadium, which holds 6,600. The club plays in red with white detail; a fuller description of the colours and any change kit was not established from the sources read here. Kit manufacturer has been Macron since 2023, following Hummel from 2019 to 2022 and Adidas from 2015 to 2018.
The head coach is the Finn Toni Korkeakunnas. He succeeded the German Roland Vrabec, who had been in charge from 2024 into 2026; before Vrabec the club had brief spells under the Belgian Stijn Vreven and the Italian Gino Lettieri, who coached from 2022 to 2024. Earlier managers included the Portuguese João Luís Martins (2020-21), the Lithuanian Valdas Urbonas (2021-22) and the Moldovan Alexandru Curteian (2018-20), with Virginijus Liubšys in charge for the club's first two seasons. The chairman is Bronius Vaitiekūnas.
Recent seasons
Panevėžys's first A Lyga season, 2019, produced fifth place on 37 points. The pandemic-shortened 2020 season, with only 20 matches played, brought fifth again but just 12 points. They rose to fourth in 2021 with 60 points from 36 matches, then third in 2022 with 62 points, their best finish to that point. In 2023 they won the title outright, 87 points from 36 matches with 26 wins, 9 draws and only 1 defeat, 64 goals scored against 14 conceded, finishing 12 points clear of runners-up FK Žalgiris. The title defence did not go well: 2024 brought eighth place on 41 points, and 2025 a recovery to sixth on 49 points from 14 wins, 7 draws and 15 defeats.
Honours and landmarks
Panevėžys are A Lyga champions once, in 2023, and were third in 2022. They have won the Lithuanian Football Cup twice, beating Sūduva on penalties in the 2020 final and beating FC Hegelmann 1-0 in the 2025 final, Ariagner Smith scoring the only goal in the 72nd minute at the Central Stadium in Jonava on 28 September 2025 in front of 1,463 spectators, with Vilius Paulauskas refereeing; they were Cup runners-up in 2021. They have also won the Lithuanian Supercup twice, in 2021 and 2024, though the opponents and scorelines in those finals were not established from the sources read here. The 2023 league title was the club's first Lithuanian championship in its own right, separate from the seven won by the earlier Ekranas club that Panevėžys replaced.
Notable scorelines
The club's best European result is a 4-1 aggregate win over HJK Helsinki of Finland in the 2024-25 Champions League first qualifying round, a 3-0 home win followed by a 1-1 draw away. That was immediately followed by a heavy 1-7 aggregate defeat to Jagiellonia Białystok of Poland in the second qualifying round, losing the home leg 0-4 and the away leg 1-3. In the 2023-24 Conference League first qualifying round they overturned a tough tie against FC Milsami Orhei of Moldova, drawing 2-2 at home before winning 1-0 away for a 3-2 aggregate, only to lose the following round 1-2 on aggregate to Hapoel Be'er Sheva of Israel. The club's outright record win and record defeat, in Europe or domestically, were not established from the sources read here.
European record
Panevėžys made their European debut in the 2021-22 Conference League, losing 0-2 on aggregate to FK Vojvodina of Serbia in the second qualifying round. In 2022-23 they went out in the first qualifying round, 0-2 on aggregate to Milsami Orhei, a tie they avenged the following season as described above before losing to Hapoel Be'er Sheva.
Their best European season by distance was 2024-25, entering the Champions League as national champions. They beat HJK Helsinki 4-1 on aggregate in the first qualifying round before being eliminated 1-7 on aggregate by Jagiellonia Białystok in the second, dropping into the Europa League third qualifying round, where they lost 1-5 on aggregate to Maccabi Tel Aviv. That dropped them again into the Conference League play-off round, where they lost 0-3 on aggregate to The New Saints of Wales, going out of Europe entirely without reaching a league phase. No European campaign for 2025-26 was established from the sources read here.
Head-to-head notes
Panevėžys's clearest domestic rival in recent seasons has been FK Žalgiris, the club they finished 12 points ahead of when winning the 2023 title. Their two Lithuanian Cup final wins have come against different opponents, Sūduva on penalties in 2020 and Hegelmann 1-0 in 2025. Beyond those results, detailed all-time head-to-head records against specific Lithuanian clubs were not established from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Toni Korkeakunnas remains head coach into the new season. Panevėžys entered the 2026-27 UEFA Conference League qualifying as the 2025 Lithuanian Cup holders and were eliminated in the second qualifying round by FC Tobol of Kazakhstan: both legs finished 1-1, the second going to extra time, for a 2-2 aggregate, with Tobol winning the penalty shootout 3-2. Exact dates and venues for that tie were not established from the sources read here. Panevėžys are out of European competition for the rest of the season.
Domestically, the Lithuanian top flight was renamed TOPLYGA on 5 February 2026, and the 2026 season, which began on 21 February and runs into November, has been played by a reduced field after Riteriai withdrew mid-season with a record of 0 played and 0 points. The most recent published table has Panevėžys eighth of the nine remaining competing clubs, on 23 points from 24 matches played, with 6 wins, 5 draws and 13 defeats, 21 goals scored and 41 conceded. Full late-season fixture dates, the club's 2026 transfer business and any end-of-season play-off format were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FK_Panev%C4%97%C5%BEys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FK_Ekranas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lyga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_TOPLYGA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Lithuanian_Football_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026-27_UEFA_Europa_Conference_League https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Conference_League_qualifying
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.