Kuopion Palloseura
Also written as KuPS, KuPS Kuopio.
The club
KuPS were founded on 16 March 1923 at the Kuopion Seurahuone in Kuopio, in eastern Finland, originally abbreviated KPS. The colours were black and green stripes at first; in 1935 they changed to a yellow shirt with black shorts, and the abbreviation changed to KuPS at the same time. The club is known as Keltamusta, the Yellow-Black. The Kuopio ground has a capacity of about 5,000, of which 2,700 is seated; Wikipedia's infobox lists it as the Väre Areena, formerly the Savon Sanomat Areena, while UEFA's match listings for this summer's ties name it the Kuopio Football Stadium. Vesa Kauppila is chairman.
KuPS were first promoted to the Mestaruussarja in 1947 and stayed in the top flight for 44 consecutive seasons from 1949. They fell as far as the third tier in the 1990s amid financial trouble, and have been continuously in the Veikkausliiga since 2008. They have not finished lower than third since 2017.
Recent seasons
Runners-up in 2021, runners-up in 2022, runners-up in 2023. In 2024 they won the club's first league and cup double, taking the Veikkausliiga and the Finnish Cup under Jani Honkavaara with Petteri Pennanen as captain. In 2025 they won the league again, an eighth Finnish championship, and lost the Finnish Cup final.
They are on course for a third in a row. After 19 matches of the 2026 Veikkausliiga, updated to 9 August 2026, KuPS led with 40 points from 11 wins, 7 draws and a single defeat, scoring 34 and conceding 17. Inter Turku were second on 35. Jaime Moreno had five league goals and Bob Nii Armah four.
Honours and landmarks
Eight Finnish championships: 1956, 1958, 1966, 1974, 1976, 2019, 2024 and 2025. Thirteen times runners-up. Five Finnish Cups: 1968, 1989, 2021, 2022 and 2024, with four losing finals, the most recent in 2025. One Finnish League Cup, in 2006. Three second-tier titles and one third-tier title. The club sits fourth in the all-time Finnish top-division table.
The golden era ran from the 1950s to the 1970s, when KuPS won five titles and were runners-up eight times.
Notable scorelines
No club record win or record defeat in domestic football was confirmed from the sources read here. In European competition the widest wins on record are the 5-0 home win over UNA Strassen in the 2024-25 Conference League first qualifying round, and a 5-0 home win over Noah in the 2021-22 Conference League first qualifying round, which overturned a 0-1 defeat in Armenia. The heaviest European defeats are the two 0-7 losses to Saint-Étienne in the 1980-81 UEFA Cup first round, home and away, a 0-14 aggregate. In the 2025-26 Europa League play-off they lost 0-2 at home and 0-4 away to Midtjylland.
European record
KuPS have played 81 matches in UEFA competition, winning 21, drawing 23 and losing 37, scoring 90 and conceding 144. That splits as 14 matches in the Champions League, 4 in the Cup Winners' Cup, 33 in the UEFA Cup and Europa League and 30 in the Conference League.
The Conference League has been much the most productive: 8 wins, 13 draws and 9 defeats from 30 games. The high point is 2025-26, when KuPS reached the Conference League league phase for the first time, the first time any Finnish club had done so, and then became the first Finnish club to advance from a European league phase into a knockout round. They finished 21st of 36 with one win and four draws, drawing 1-1 at home with Drita, 0-0 away at Breiðablik, beating Slovan Bratislava 3-1 at home, losing 1-0 at Jagiellonia Białystok, drawing 0-0 at home with Lausanne-Sport and drawing 2-2 at Crystal Palace. The run ended in the knockout play-off against Lech Poznań, 0-2 at home and 0-1 away.
Earlier in that same 2025-26 campaign they had come through the Champions League first qualifying round against Milsami Orhei 1-0, lost the second round to Kairat 2-3, then beaten RFS 3-1 in the Europa League third qualifying round before Midtjylland ended the Europa League route 6-0 on aggregate.
Quotes
- "Haluttiin voittaa tänään, joten siinä mielessä emme voi olla tyytyväisiä. Ensimmäisellä puoliajalla emme olleet omalla parhaalla tasollamme." - Miika Nuutinen, KuPS head coach, on the club website after the 1-1 draw with Universitatea Craiova, 6 August 2026. https://kups.fi/kups-nousi-tasoihin-craiovaa-vastaan-ottelupari-ratkaistaan-romaniassa/ - "Toisella puoliajalla korjasimme sitä isosti, ja taisteluilme oli sellainen kuin sen kuuluukin olla." - Miika Nuutinen, KuPS head coach, on the club website, 6 August 2026. https://kups.fi/kups-nousi-tasoihin-craiovaa-vastaan-ottelupari-ratkaistaan-romaniassa/ - "Kun vastustaja siirtyy videolta kentälle, se on aina eri asia. Siellä on paljon laatua, eikä joukkue ole syyttä suotta menestynyt kotimaassaan." - Miika Nuutinen, KuPS head coach, on the club website, 6 August 2026. https://kups.fi/kups-nousi-tasoihin-craiovaa-vastaan-ottelupari-ratkaistaan-romaniassa/ - "Meidän pitää uskoa omaan peliimme, löytää tästä esityksestä ne asiat, joita pystymme ensi viikoksi parantamaan, ja hakea Romaniasta voitto." - Miika Nuutinen, KuPS head coach, on the club website, 6 August 2026. https://kups.fi/kups-nousi-tasoihin-craiovaa-vastaan-ottelupari-ratkaistaan-romaniassa/
No directly quoted player material was confirmed from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Miika Nuutinen is the head coach. The Finnish season runs through the summer, so KuPS have played their European ties in the middle of a league campaign they currently lead.
As Finnish champions they entered the Champions League. In the first qualifying round they beat Vardar 4-3 on aggregate the hard way, winning 2-0 in Skopje on 7 July 2026 through Brahima Magassa on the stroke of half-time and Bob Nii Armah on 49 minutes, then losing the home leg 3-2 after extra time on 14 July, Armah and a Piotr Parzyszek penalty rescuing the tie in the second period of extra time. In the second qualifying round Sabah of Azerbaijan beat them 3-0 on aggregate, 1-0 in Masazir on 21 July and 2-0 in Kuopio on 28 July.
That dropped KuPS into the Europa League third qualifying round against Universitatea Craiova of Romania, and the tie is live. The first leg at home on Thursday 6 August 2026 finished 1-1 before 1,757 spectators: Ștefan Baiaram put Craiova ahead on 38 minutes and Jaime Moreno equalised on 72. The second leg is at the Ion Oblemenco Stadium in Craiova on Thursday 13 August 2026, refereed by Nenad Minaković of Serbia. The winners meet Ararat-Armenia in the Europa League play-off on 20 and 27 August; the losers drop into the Conference League play-off round.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuopion_Palloseura https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Veikkausliiga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Champions_League_qualifying_phase_and_play-off_round https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_UEFA_Europa_League_qualifying_phase_and_play-off_round https://kups.fi/kups-nousi-tasoihin-craiovaa-vastaan-ottelupari-ratkaistaan-romaniassa/ https://kups.fi/uutiset/
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.