FC Schaffhausen

Schaffhausen enter this season back in the Promotion League, the third tier, after dropping out of the Challenge League in 2025 — a step down from the division where the club has spent most of the last two decades, and the immediate task is simply to get back up.

The club traces to a gathering on the Munot, the hilltop fortress above the town, where it was founded in 1896 as Football-Club Viktoria under its first president, Robert Sturzenegger. It joined the Swiss football association in 1901, took the name Fussball-Klub Schaffhausen a year later, and spent two decades from 1915 playing as Vereinigte FC Schaffhausen-Sparta before reverting to its familiar name.

Promotion and relegation have shaped the club more than any single trophy. Schaffhausen won what is now the Challenge League in 1962–63 and again in 2003–04, and that second title carried them into the top flight, the Axpo Super League, for three seasons before they dropped back down. The low point came in 2010/11, when the club fell as far as the fourth division, only to climb back to the Challenge League by 2013.

Two players who came through Schaffhausen went on to define eras elsewhere: Roberto Di Matteo played for the club before his career took him to Italy and England, and Joachim Löw captained the side in 1991, long before he took charge of Germany. Jürgen Seeberger's spell on the bench between 2000 and 2007 stands out for the same reason — it ended with the club back in the top division.

Since 2017 the team has played at the FCS Arena, an all-seater, covered ground holding 8,200, replacing the old Stadion Breite. Home kit runs yellow and black, and the fixture against FC Winterthur, a regional rivalry stretching past 115 official meetings, remains the one that matters most on the calendar. For now, the club's business is the Promotion League table and finding a way out of it.