Neftchi

The story begins at the Fergana oil refinery, where in 1962 plant workers put together a team called Neftyanik. The club kept that identity through Soviet reorganisation until 1992, the year Uzbekistan's own league began, when it took the name Neftchi. Supporters call them the Tigers.

No one is tied to the club longer than Yuriy Sarkisyan, who joined as a player in 1987 and stayed on, latterly as coach, until 2013 — long enough that people started calling him the Uzbek Ferguson.

Neftchi won the league four years in a row as the competition began, then took the Uzbekistan Cup in 1994 and 1996. A fifth title followed in 2001. A sixth came only in 2025, 24 years later.

In March 2026, Neftchi beat Pakhtakor 1-0 at the Bobur Arena in Andijan to win the Uzbekistan Super Cup, a trophy the club had never held before. Ferreira Ratinho scored the goal.

The club dropped into the Pro League in 2019 and won it in 2021. It was back in the Superliga by 2022. Home games are played at the Istiqlol stadium in Fergana, opened in 2015 and holding 20,500, after decades at the old Fergana stadium. The fiercest fixture remains against Pakhtakor of Tashkent, known as the Uzbek Clasico; closer to home, Neftchi meets Navbahor of Namangan and Andijan in the Fergana Valley derby.

The refinery that gave the club its first name still stands in Fergana.