About 1. FC Košice
http://www.slovensko.com/news/1556
Two-time champions 1.FC Kosice disappears from Slovak football
Tue 03 Aug 04, 16:10 • RSI
Slovakia's only team to have made it to the group stage of the Champions' League, 1.FC Kosice, has officially ceased to exist after the national soccer body approved its acquisition by second division Licartovce on July 30. The twice Slovak football champions (1997, 1998) were relegated from the premier division in 2003 after the proposed sale of the club to Italian owners in 2001 by the former owner and late VSZ steelmaking tycoon Alexander Rezes fell through. Although Rezes' dream to turn 1.FC Kosice into a top European club never came true, he managed to lift an average second division team to the first group stage of the UEFA Champions' League in 1997/98. However, the next year's failure to make the same stage of the major European competition, and failure to defend the league title, combined with the change of government which undermined the position of the Rezes clan (Alexander Rezes was economy minister of Vladimir Meciar's government in 1994-97) represented the beginning of the end of the "millionaires".
Last season, on the brink of financial collapse and relegation from the second division, the owners of 1.FC, were offered help by the president of Steel Trans Licartovce, one of the favourites to advance to the premier league this season. Steel Trans will also pay for the Cermel stadium in Kosice, where all former 1.FC teams - now under the protective wings of Licartovce - will play their matches. Kosice, the second largest city in Slovakia, now has no club in the top two divisions (although many can remember two in the Czechoslovak federal league). Another great team from the past, Lokomotiva Kosice, is in the fourth division. It is quite difficult to predict the future of football in the city, whose major stadium is in a catastrophic condition and whose football officials turn a deaf ear to cries for help.