Merani Tbilisi

Merani have spent the 2026 season in Liga 3, Georgia's third tier, after a run through the divisions that has gone almost entirely downward since their one good year. 2019 was that year: the club, formed on 23 July out of a side called Norchi Dinamoeli and renamed Merani, won Erovnuli Liga 2 outright and went straight up to the top flight. It lasted one season. Bottom of the table in 2020, relegated, and from there a slide through the second and third divisions — fifth in 2021, sixth in 2022, bottom again and down a level in 2023.

The name carries weight it cannot claim. A club called Merani Tbilisi played in Georgia's top division from 1991 to 2009, fielding players such as Otar Gabelia and Zaza Kvekveskiri, and its ground was Sinatle. Transfermarkt and Sofascore both record the current club as a separate entity, refounded in 2019, and no source ties the two together directly. The old badge survives online; the current side has none attached to it, and its colours — grey-and-white home, blue-and-yellow away, as recorded for the 2020 kit — belong to this club alone, not the red-and-white associated with the pre-2009 team.

Home games are played at the Shatili sports complex, a 2,000-seat ground unrelated to Sinatle. It is a fitting scale for where the club sits: third division football, run through fcmeranitbilisi.ge, which also lists a reserve side and a women's team alongside the first team. Merani have also featured in the David Kipiani Cup, named for the Dinamo Tbilisi and Georgia midfielder, and have met Guria there.

Seven years on from that single promotion, the task is the same one clubs at this level always face: climb back through Liga 2 and try to make the top flight stick this time.