Astana Football Club () is a professional football club based in Astana. They play in the Kazakhstan Premier League, the highest level of Kazakh football. The club's home ground is the 30,254-seat Astana Arena stadium. The club colours, reflected in their badge and kit, are sky blue and yellow. Founded as Lokomotiv Astana in 2009, the club changed its name to Astana in 2011. They are members of the Astana Presidential Club, an association of the main sports teams in the capital supported by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna. The short history of the club already boasts seven league titles, three Kazakhstan Cups and five Kazakhstan Super Cups. History Founding and first years (2009–2014) On 27 December 2008, football clubs from Almaty Megasport and Alma-Ata announced they would merge to found a new club. The club was named "FC Lokomotiv Astana" as the National Railway Company Kazakhstan Temir Zholy became a general sponsor. Kazakhstan Temir Zholy in cooperation with City Council of Astana decided to move the club to the new building stadium in the capital of Kazakhstan. Vakhid Masudov became the first head coach in the club's history. The club has benefited from a high salary role which has enabled them to attract players of status to the club. Andrey Tikhonov and Yegor Titov first of all came from the Russian Football Premier League. Several more followed such as Patrick Ovie and Baffour Gyan. Maksim Shatskikh later arrived from Dynamo Kyiv in the Ukrainian Premier League which was again a very high-profile capture for the club. The majority of their other players have arrived from other clubs of the Kazakhstan Premier League, mostly on free transfers from the clubs which were absorbed to make the club and several which went into bankruptcy. On 8 March 2009, Lokomotiv played in the league's inaugural match against Kazakhmys in Satbayev. In March 2009, Vakhid Masudov was replaced by Vladimir Gulyamkhaidarov. However, only two days after his appointment he was replaced by Russian specialist Sergei Yuran. The club earned silver medals in their first season of play. On 14 November 2010, Holger Fach guided Astana to their first Kazakhstan Cup success. However, they were ineligible for a UEFA license since they had not yet existed for at least three years. So they were not able to start in the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League. On 2 March 2011, Astana beat Tobol 2–1 and won