Rot-Weiß Erfurt

Rot-Weiß Erfurt spent the years after March 2018 trying to survive. That month the club filed for bankruptcy, and relegation to the Regionalliga Nordost followed. In 2020 a second entity, SC Rot-Weiß Erfurt e.V., was set up as a precaution, so the name and the football would have somewhere to go if the original club collapsed. It did not have to. The creditors' insolvency plan was approved in November 2023 and the original club resumed operations.

The trouble came from a long way up. The club dates from 26 January 1966, when SC Turbine Erfurt and BSG Optima Erfurt merged. Its roots go back to a cricket club formed in 1895. Its best years came under the Turbine name, when it won the East German DDR-Oberliga in 1953–54 and again in 1954–55. In 1979–80 it reached the FDGB-Pokal final and lost to Carl Zeiss Jena, the same Jena that Erfurt meet in the Thüringen-Derby.

After reunification the trophy that kept coming was the Thuringian Cup. That was the season before the money ran out.

The club's most-capped player is Jürgen Heun, who made 370 appearances. Thomas Linke came through the youth academy and went on to play for Germany and reach the 2002 World Cup final.

Erfurt are called RWE, or Die Rot-Weißen, and they play in the Steigerwaldstadion, which holds 18,611. They are again a single, solvent club.