Uzbekneftegaz. Photo: Shukhrat Latipov / Gazeta.uz.
The state-owned company Uzbekneftegaz has announced it will stop financing the football clubs Nasaf (Karshi), Bukhara, and Bunyodkor (Tashkent). A corresponding letter was sent to the Uzbekistan Football Association (UFA) on February 12, journalist Narzulla Saydullayev reported.
Saydullayev noted that about two weeks remain before the start of the 2026 Super League season.
The decision is said to be linked to cost-cutting measures aimed at ensuring the company’s financial stability amid declining gas production.
At the end of January, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting on the activities of the joint-stock company Uzbekneftegaz. The head of state said the company’s management should pay special attention to improving operational efficiency, including financial stability, which could be achieved by divesting non-core assets, ending sponsorship payments, and optimizing expenses.
In 2018, against the backdrop of reforms in the oil and gas sector tied to financial optimization, Uzbekneftegaz cut the budgets of six clubs by threefold. In addition to Nasaf, Bukhara, and Bunyodkor, the reductions affected Neftchi (Fergana), Mashal (Mubarek), and Shurtan (Guzar).
At the time, then-UFA head Umid Akhmadjanov suggested that sponsors themselves were not eager to support teams. He also listed problem clubs and their sponsors: Bunyodkor (Uztransgaz), Bukhara (Bukhara Oil Refinery), Mashal (Uzbekneftegaz), Nasaf (Shurtan Gas Chemical Complex), Neftchi (Fergana Oil Refinery), and Shurtan (Shurtanneftegaz).
Since then, there have been ongoing discussions in Uzbekistan about the need to privatize football clubs. Nearly all teams remain state-funded, and little has changed over the past seven years.
Just two days before Uzbekneftegaz’s letter, on February 10, the UFA and the country’s Olympic Committee held a meeting where club privatization and financing issues were again discussed, including the introduction of new, more structured and calculated funding mechanisms. It has not been clarified whether that meeting is connected to the major sponsor’s decision.
