Yamoussoukro

Koné Bazoumana, known as "Pinto", was named Best Goalkeeper at the Ivorian Football Awards for the 2025–26 season. In the same season his club won promotion to the top flight for the first time. Yamoussoukro won Poule B of Ligue 2, ahead of opponents such as Sirocco FC of San-Pedro. It did so without a league title or a cup behind it, so the promotion is the biggest thing it has done.

The club is not new to the city. It played for two decades as Renaissance FC de Yamoussoukro. In 2019 the PFO AFRICA group, led by the architect Pierre Fakhoury, bought it and renamed it Yamoussoukro Football Club, or Yakro FC. The supporters and the club itself treat that as a change of name, not a new start, and they count their history from 1999.

The nickname Les Béliers, the Rams, sits beside a second one, Boigny. It comes from Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the first president of Côte d'Ivoire, after whom the city is named. The team wears blue and white and plays at the Stade Charles-Konan-Banny, which holds 20,000. Its local derby is against Zoman FC, the other big club in town.

The squad has also produced players who moved on. Salif Bagaté, a striker who arrived in January 2026 from Sporting Club de Gagnoa after time at ASEC Mimosas, later left for Hafia FC in Guinea. Mory Doumbia, a defender, was selected for the Ivory Coast Under-17 side. An academy takes players aged 10 to 18, so the club now trains its own.

In July 2026 the new top-flight side met Olympique de Marseille in a friendly and lost 0–3. It was a long way from where the club began, when two neighbourhood teams, Benfica FC and Entente Football Club, merged into one.