FC Kharkiv FK Kharkiv (formerly FC Metalist 1925 Kharkiv) is a Ukrainian football club founded on 17 August 2016, created as a continuation of the legacy of the legendary FC Metalist Kharkiv — one of the most decorated clubs in independent Ukraine's history, with roots dating back to 1925. The historic Metalist, having finished as national runners-up in the 2012–13 season and won six bronze medals in the Ukrainian championship, lost its licence from the Football Federation of Ukraine in 2016 due to financial problems and formally ceased operations.
The newly founded club at the time, taking the founding year of the original Metalist into its own name, began competing at the lowest level of Ukrainian football, the Ukrainian Football Amateur League, in which it finished second in its very first season, 2016–17, earning promotion. A further promotion followed the next year, and in the 2020–21 season the team achieved promotion to the Premier League — Ukraine's top flight — for the first time in its modern history.
For years, the club played its home matches at the historic Metalist Oblast Sports Complex, capable of holding over 40,000 spectators, though due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the destruction of sporting infrastructure in the Kharkiv region, it now plays at the far more modest Arena Livyi Bereh. After remaining in the Premier League until the 2023–24 season, the club was relegated to the First League, only to return to Ukraine's elite via the play-offs a year later, in the 2024–25 season, having finished third in the table, though for the first time in its history it failed to qualify for European competition that season.
In the summer of 2025, the club underwent a thorough rebranding, dropping the Metalist 1925 name in favour of the new, simpler name FK Kharkiv, introducing a new crest featuring a distinctive letter "X" and replacing the traditional yellow-and-blue colours associated with Metalist with new red-and-yellow colours. The decision, preceded by months of preparation first signalled back in 2024 by club owner Volodymyr Nosov, was aimed at building a new identity for the team, more directly tied to the city itself, although among supporters the club continues to be widely regarded as the natural successor to the tradition of one of the most recognisable football clubs in eastern Ukraine.