Sport Academy Kairat

Across Almaty, Kairat-Zhastar's sharpest rival wears the colours of FC Khan Tengri, and matches between the two academy sides carry enough weight that the local press treats them as a derby in their own right — a fixture the young Academics have recently won comfortably.

The club itself has spent most of its existence changing its name rather than settling on one. It started out in 2010 as FC Tsesna, became Kairat-Academy in 2012, Kairat A in 2017, then Kairat-Zhastar in 2019 — and the databases tracking the current season already list it under yet another name, Sport Academy Kairat. Behind every version sits the same arrangement, in place since December 2011: a farm side inside FC Kairat's academy, owned like the senior club by KazRosGaz, built to feed players up into the first team.

That pipeline is what the club is for. It has sent Dastan Satpayev on to Chelsea, and put Damir Kasabulat, Azamat Tuyakbayev, Ismail Bekbolat and Ramazan Karimov into Kazakhstan's senior national side. Silverware has mattered less: a bronze medal in the First League in 2017, won under the name Kairat A, is the one honour on the record, from seasons that otherwise brought nothing higher than a mid-table finish.

Home games are played at the Youth Academy Stadium named after T. S. Segizbayev, built for 600 spectators. When Kairat's academy hosted Real Madrid's under-19 side there for a UEFA Youth League tie in September 2025, safety rules cut the crowd allowed in to 250 — 216, by the club's own count.