Stade Nyonnais

Stade Nyonnais go into the new season in the Challenge League, back where the club spent much of 2023 fighting to return after a promotion process complicated by its own boardroom. Sassoun Sirmakes, whose father owns Lausanne-Sport, had to give up his majority stake in the club before the league would clear it to play at that level, a conflict-of-interest ruling that arrived only after Nyon had already finished third in Promotion League and gone through the play-offs to get there. The presidency passed from Vartan Sirmakes, who had run the club since 2015, to an association structure under Michel Palma.

The club started out in 1905 as Bluet, a name that lasted only until 1907, when it settled on FC Stade Nyonnais. The yellow and black shirts date from the same founding year, chosen, it is said, in tribute to Young Boys of Bern. Since 1991 the team has played at the Centre sportif de Colovray, a 7,200-capacity ground, though the record crowd belongs to another stadium entirely.

In 2001, Nyon arranged a friendly against Real Madrid at the Marens ground and drew 6,800 spectators, the biggest gate in the club's history. Zinedine Zidane, freshly arrived from Juventus, scored his first goal for Real Madrid that night.

Since the 2023/24 season, Nyon's fiercest fixture has been against Neuchâtel Xamax, a rivalry the Swiss press has taken to calling the Hassduell, or "hate derby," after Xamax coach Uli Forte publicly questioned whether Nyon deserved its place in the Challenge League following a forfeited match the previous year. Most of what sits in the trophy cabinet, meanwhile, comes from further down the pyramid: nine 2e ligue titles and three in 1ère ligue, the most recent from 2008, the same year Nyon reached the quarter-final of the Swiss Cup before Basel put them out, 2-0.