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| Full name | Fußballclub Energie Cottbus e. V. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nicknames | Energie[citation needed] Die Lausitzer (Lusatian)[citation needed] Ultima Raka (Crayfishes)[citation needed] | |||
| Founded | 31 January 1966; 60 years ago (1966-01-31) | |||
| Ground | Stadion der Freundschaft | |||
| Capacity | 22,528 (10,949 seated)[citation needed] | |||
| Chairman | Sebastian Lemke[citation needed] | |||
| Manager | Claus-Dieter Wollitz | |||
| League | 3. Liga | |||
| 2024–25 | 3. Liga, 4th of 20 | |||
| Website | www | |||
 Current season | ||||
FC Energie Cottbus (Lower Sorbian:Energija Chóśebuz) is aGerman football club based inCottbus,Brandenburg. It was founded in 1963 as SC Cottbus in what wasEast Germany. After thereunification of Germany, Energie played six seasons in the third tier of theGerman football league system before floating between the2. Bundesliga andBundesliga for 17 years between 1997 and 2014. From 2014 to 2016, the club played in the third tier,3. Liga, and were then relegated to theRegionalliga Nordost. In 2018, they were promoted back into the 3. Liga, only to be relegated again the next season. The club currently plays in the 3. Liga.
Energie Cottbus can trace its roots back to a predecessor side ofFSV Glückauf Brieske-Senftenberg, a club founded by coal miners in 1919, in what was then called the town of Marga.[citation needed] FV Grube Marga, as the club was then called, was active until 1924 when the miners left to form a new team called SV Sturm Grube Marga, which was banned by theNazi Party in 1933.
The club re-emerged afterWorld War II in 1949 as BSG Franz Mehring Grube, becomingBSG Aktivist Brieske-Ost in 1950.[citation needed] The club was re-organized assports club SC Aktivist Brieske-Senftenberg in 1954 and played in theDDR-Oberliga generally earning mid-table results until relegation to second-tierDDR-Liga in the early 1960s.[vague][citation needed] The players of this side joined the new sports club SC Energie Cottbus in 1963, whilst the reserve team merged back to BSG Aktivist Brieske-Ost to form BSG Aktivist Senftenberg.[citation needed] The club still exists asFSV Glückauf Brieske-Senftenberg today.[citation needed] SC Cottbus was quickly assisted by a wholesale transfer of players fromSC Aktivist Brieske-Ost ordered by the East German authorities,[citation needed] who often intervened in the business of the country's sports and football clubs for political reasons. East German authorities had a penchant for[according to whom?] tagging sports teams with the names of socialist heroes:Franz Mehring was a German socialist politician and journalist.
In the mid-1960s, a re-organization program by the regime led to the separation of football sides from sports clubs and the creation of BSG von Bodo Krautz under the patronage of a local coal mine.[citation needed] The football club went by that name only briefly and was quickly renamed BSG Energie in early 1966.
The team took on the name FC Energie in 1990 at the time ofGerman reunification.
After years as a II division or lower-table I division side in East Germany, Energie emerged as one of the few former DDR sides to enjoy[tone] relative prosperity in a united Germany. After six seasons playing tier III football, the club earnedreturned to the2. Bundesliga in 1997 (the same year they became the first former East German club to play theDFB Cup Final), winning theRegionalliga Nordost, and then played its way into theBundesliga in 2000, where it had a three-year stay.[vague][citation needed] A key player in the Bundesliga run wasVasile Miriuță, an imaginative midfield player.[citation needed] After beingrelegated, Energie narrowly missed a prompt[tone] return to the top tier, losing out toMainz 05 on goal difference.
In2004–05, Energie struggled with both financial (reported debts of €4.5 million) and on-field problems, and the club only escaped relegation to the third tierRegionalliga by scoring one more goal thanEintracht Trier while having the same number of points and goal difference. During the season, manager Eduard Geyer was replaced by Petrik Sander and chairman Dieter Krein was replaced by Ulrich Lepsch. The2005–06 season saw the club finish third and return to the Bundesliga.
The2006–07 Bundesliga season resulted in a 13th-place finish and 41 points, a club record total in the Bundesliga.[citation needed] Energie Cottbus were the only club from the former East Germany playing in the Bundesliga until they lost a relegation play-off to1. FC Nürnberg in 2009.[citation needed] Cottbus remained in the 2. Bundesliga for another five seasons until 2014, when an 18th-place finish meantreturning to the3. Liga, ending a 17-season stint in the top two divisions.[citation needed] After a 19th-place finish in the 3. Liga in 2015–16, the club went through another return to the Regionalliga Nordost.
Following two seasons in the fourth tier, Cottbus returned to 3. Liga after defeatingWeiche Flensburg over two legs in the Regionalliga play-offs, but in the2018–19 season they were returned to the Regionalliga after finishing 17th.
On May 21, 2023, Cottbus won the Regionalliga Nordost with their win overSV Babelsberg 03 in Matchweek 33.[vague] It was their third time winning Regionalliga Nordost and their first since 2018. In the promotion games for3. Liga, Cottbus lost two games againstSpVgg Unterhaching and therefore promotion failed. On June 3, 2023, Cottbus won theBrandenburg Cup for the 11th time in their history.[citation needed] They defeatedFSV 63 Luckenwalde by a score of 4–1.
Cottbus ended the2023–24 season as champion and was promoted to3. Liga.
Former German chancellorAngela Merkel is an honorary member of the club.
In recent decades, FC Energie Cottbus have been associated with right-wing supporters, particularly among their ultra and fan groups. In 2005, the ultra group Inferno Cottbus caused controversy when they displayed an antisemitic banner at a game againstDynamo Dresden.[1] In 2009, a planned pre-season friendly between Energie Cottbus andGermania Storkow was cancelled after theNational Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) announced a far-right demonstration, leading the club to withdraw for safety concerns.[2] In 2012, Inferno Cottbus supporters held up letters forming the Nazi greeting "Sieg Heil" at an away match againstFC St. Pauli. In 2013, a pre-season match against the Israeli teamMaccabi Tel Aviv in Austria was cancelled due to the planned attendance of 40 far-right Cottbus fans, including members of Inferno.[3] In 2015–2017, several incidents occurred in matches against SV Babelsberg 03, where Cottbus fans directed Nazi salutes and chanted antisemitic slogans, including "Ticks, Gypsies and Jews", "Work sets you free" and other far-right messages.[1][4] In 2017, after a fourth-tier match at Babelsberg, masked Cottbus supporters attempted to storm the pitch and engaged in racist and antisemitic chanting.[1] In 2018, celebrations following Energie Cottbus' promotion to the 3. Liga were marred by fans marching inKu Klux Klan-style hoods and displaying banners referencing Hitler, while manager Claus-Dieter Wollitz apologized for singing an anti-Romani song during postgame celebrations.[1][5] In response to ongoing far-right activity, the club banned Inferno Cottbus from home and away matches in 2013 and initiated anti-racism campaigns.[3] Despite these measures, isolated incidents and the presence of extremist fans continued to affect the club and its public image through at least 2020.
Several initiatives and fan groups have actively opposed right-wing extremism within and around FC Energie Cottbus. Most notably, the Facebook group "Energie Fans against Nazis", founded in 2017, has sought to challenge the influence of far-right supporters, advocating for an inclusive fan culture and publicly displaying banners such as “Always in the majority!” Other antifascist and left-leaning supporters, alongside external allies like SV Babelsberg 03, have also campaigned against racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, sometimes coordinating with the club itself to promote tolerance and counter extremist behaviour at matches.[1]
The club's honours:
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
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| Position | Name |
|---|---|
| Director of Football & Manager |  Claus-Dieter Wollitz |
| Assistant Manager | Jonas Hildebrandt |
| Goalkeeper Coach | Anton Wittmann |
| Athletic Coach |  Gianluca Fraternali |
| Video Analyst | Tobias Röder |
| Doctor | Dr. Hartmut Thamke Dr. Andreas Koch |
| Physiotherapist | Bastian Rost |
| Technical Director | Ralf Korsowski |
| Goalkeeping Co-ordinator | Marvin-Gordon Jahn |
| Academy Manager | Matthias RahnHenri Fuchs |
On 6 April 2001, Energie became the first Bundesliga club to field a side made up of 11 foreign players. Energie often fielded nine or ten foreigners that season: German players appeared a total of just 83 times, with strikerSebastian Helbig as the leader with 28.
The players wereTomislav Piplica,Faruk Hujdurović,Bruno Akrapović (Bosnia and Herzegovina),János Mátyus,Vasile Miriuță (Hungary),Rudi Vata (Albania),Moussa Latoundji (Benin),Andrzej Kobylański (Poland),Antun Labak (Croatia),Laurențiu Reghecampf (Romania), andFranklin (Brazil). As a side note, even the three substitutes were foreigners, namelyJohnny Rödlund from Sweden,Sabin Ilie from Romania andWitold Wawrzyczek from Poland.[7][additional citation(s) needed]
Theclub's reserve team,FC Energie Cottbus II, has played as high asRegionalliga level, last playing in theRegionalliga Nordost in 2012–13. The team most recently[when?] played in the tier fiveNOFV-Oberliga Süd but has, in the past,[when?] also played in thenorthern division of the league. It first reached Oberliga level in 1998 and has won league championships in 2007 and 2010.[8][9] At the end of the2015–16 season, the team was withdrawn from competition.
In 1998, it also won theBrandenburgischer Landespokal, the local cup competition in Brandenburg, and qualified for the first round of theDFB-Pokal through this.[citation needed] In1998–99, it went out losing 1–0 toSpVgg Greuther Fürth, in2001–02 it lost 4–0 toArminia Bielefeld.
