Velez Mostar
The club
FK Velež Mostar were founded on 26 June 1922 in Sjeverni logor, a Mostar suburb, as a workers' sports club, on the initiative of a local citizen named Gojko Vuković. The club took its name from the Velež mountain overlooking the city, itself named for the Slavic god Veles. Velež's motto, "Mostar u srcu, Velež do groba" ("Mostar in my heart, Velež till I die"), points to how closely the club is tied to its city, and during the Second World War 77 Velež footballers were killed, with nine of them receiving the Order of the People's Hero.
Velež is one of two major football clubs from Mostar, and it is essential to be clear that it is not the same organisation as the city's other big club, HŠK Zrinjski Mostar. The two are separate, historically rival institutions: Velež played every Yugoslav First League season without the interruption Zrinjski suffered, since Zrinjski was banned between 1945 and 1992 for having played in a fascist-era league, while Velež was Mostar's only major club through the Yugoslav era and drew support across the city's communities. After Bosnia and Herzegovina's independence and the Bosnian War, Zrinjski was reformed and Velež lost its historic Bijeli Brijeg stadium to its rival because of how the postwar municipal boundaries fell, forcing Velež to relocate to the eastern suburbs. The relationship between the two clubs since then is covered in more detail below, in Head-to-head notes.
Velež now play at the Stadion Rođeni, a 7,000-capacity ground in the Vrapčići suburb, first used on 25 November 1995 and formally renamed in 2017 after the club's nickname "Rođeni" (the Born). Their previous home, Stadion pod Bijelim Brijegom, held 9,000 and was built through youth work actions between 1947 and 1958; Velež played their last match there on 15 March 1992, a 2-0 win over FK Zemun, shortly before the Siege of Mostar began. The club plays in a red shirt with white shorts and socks at home, and in white away.
The current head coach is Ibrahim Rahimić, who had previously played for and coached the club and was reappointed after the 2021-22 season, when Feđa Dudić left; the sources read here on the current 2026-27 league table also list Rahimić as Velež's manager this season, which is treated here as the confirmed, current position, though the article's own managerial-history prose text names Amar Osim as having been appointed on 11 June 2022. Which of the two held the post at which point between 2022 and 2026 was not established from the sources read here; the current-season league table is treated as the more reliable, up-to-date source for who is in charge now. Before Rahimić's spell, Avdo Kalajdžić was sacked during the 2016-17 season.
Recent seasons
Across the last several Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina campaigns, Velež have generally finished in the top half without threatening the title. In 2020-21 they were third with 61 points from a 16-13-4 record. They dropped to fifth in 2021-22 on 44 points (13-8-12), and to sixth in 2022-23 on 45 points (11-12-10). They rebounded to third again in 2023-24 with 59 points (16-11-6), before a weaker 2024-25 season saw them finish seventh on 42 points (10-12-11). In 2025-26 they recovered to fourth with 51 points from a 14-9-13 record.
Honours and landmarks
Velež's major silverware dates from the Yugoslav era. They won the Yugoslav Cup twice, beating Željezničar 3-2 on 24 May 1981 and Dinamo Zagreb 3-1 on 14 May 1986, and were Yugoslav Cup runners-up in 1957-58 and 1988-89. In the Yugoslav First League itself they were runners-up three times, in 1972-73, 1973-74 and 1986-87, without ever taking the title, and they won the Yugoslav Second League in 1952 and 1954-55. They also won the Balkans Cup in 1980-81 and the Yugoslav Youth Football Cup in 1989, beating FK Vardar 4-1 in that final.
Since Bosnian independence, Velež's principal honour is the Bosnia and Herzegovina Cup, won in 2021-22 after a 0-0 draw with Sarajevo settled on penalties. They have also won the First League of FBiH, the country's second tier, twice, in 2005-06 and 2018-19.
Notable scorelines
The club's best-remembered result is a 4-1 win over Derby County at Bijeli Brijeg on 11 December 1974, in front of 20,000 spectators, which overturned a 3-1 first-leg deficit and put Velež into the UEFA Cup quarter-finals; the scorers were Primorac from the penalty spot in the 14th minute, Pecelj in the 29th, Vladić in the 51st and Bajević, also from the penalty spot, in the 85th. On the losing side, Velež lost the 1958 Yugoslav Cup final 4-0 to Red Star Belgrade and the 1989 Yugoslav Cup final 6-1 to Partizan. A fuller account of the club's biggest domestic wins and losses was not established from the sources read here.
European record
Velež's best European run came in the 1974-75 UEFA Cup, when they eliminated Spartak Moscow and Rapid Wien on away goals in the first two rounds, then beat Derby County 5-4 on aggregate in the third round on the back of the 4-1 home win described above, before losing to FC Twente 2-1 on aggregate in the quarter-finals.
In the 1981-82 Cup Winners' Cup, Velež beat Jeunesse Esch 7-2 on aggregate in the first round before losing to Lokomotiv Leipzig on penalties in the second. In the 1986-87 UEFA Cup they beat FC Sion 5-3 on aggregate before losing 3-2 on aggregate to Borussia Dortmund, having lost 2-0 away and won the home leg 2-1. In the 1988-89 UEFA Cup they beat APOEL 6-2 on aggregate, then eliminated Belenenses 4-3 on penalties after a 0-0 aggregate draw, before losing to Heart of Midlothian 3-2 on aggregate, having lost 3-0 away and won 2-1 at home.
In more recent European football, Velež reached the 2021-22 UEFA Europa Conference League qualifying rounds, eliminating Coleraine of Northern Ireland and AEK Athens of Greece before losing to IF Elfsborg of Sweden in the third qualifying round. Across their European history to 30 July 2026, the club's overall record reads 42 matches played, 16 wins, 11 draws and 15 losses, with 59 goals for and 62 against, made up of 20 UEFA Cup matches (9-4-7, 29-27), 8 Cup Winners' Cup matches (3-4-1, 18-13) and 14 UEFA Conference League matches (4-3-7, 12-22).
Head-to-head notes
Velež's main rival is HŠK Zrinjski Mostar, the other major football club from the city, and the fixture between them is known as the Mostar derby. The two clubs first met in the 1920s and 1930s, but the rivalry lapsed entirely between 1945 and 1992, since Zrinjski was banned for the whole of that period for having played in a fascist-era league during the Second World War; through those decades Velež was Mostar's only major club and drew support from across the city.
After the Bosnian War, Zrinjski was reformed, and the two sides played their first match in over 55 years on 1 March 2000, a friendly in Sarajevo that finished 2-2. Their first competitive fixture followed that August at Bijeli Brijeg Stadium, in the Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Zrinjski winning 2-0; Zrinjski's own club article dates that match to 13 August 2000, while a source on Velež's history gives 18 August 2000, and the exact date was not established with certainty from the sources read here. Bijeli Brijeg had been Velež's home stadium during their Yugoslav-era peak, and it was awarded to Zrinjski after the war under the postwar municipal boundaries, a decision that added a further layer of grievance to the rivalry on Velež's side.
The sources describe the derby as reflecting Mostar's wider communal divide: Velež is supported primarily by local Bosniaks and organised principally under a group called Red Army Mostar, while Zrinjski presents itself as the city's Croat club and its supporters are organised as the Ultras. Both fan bases are described as still representing a division along ethnic lines, with the Ultras characterised as almost exclusively Croat and Red Army as mostly Bosniak, and the fixture is described as being as highly contested as the Sarajevo derby. Nothing beyond this framing, and nothing about the balance of results between the two clubs, was established from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Velež head into the 2026-27 Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina season under Ibrahim Rahimić, per the current league table read here, though as noted above the club's own managerial-history prose instead credits Amar Osim as the most recent named appointment, from 11 June 2022, and the discrepancy between the two sources was not resolved from what was read. Through the early rounds of 2026-27, Velež sit seventh with three matches played, one win and two losses, three points from a goal record of 3 for and 5 against. Their results so far include a 2-0 home defeat to Borac and a 3-1 away defeat to the same opponent on 9 August 2026, their heaviest loss of the campaign to date. No European qualifying involvement for Velež in 2026-27 was found in the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FK_Vele%C5%BE_Mostar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%A0K_Zrinjski_Mostar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026%E2%80%9327_Premier_League_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.