Rovaniemen Palloseura (RoPS) is a football club founded in 1950 and based in Rovaniemi, Finland. RoPS played in the Finnish Premier Division, (Veikkausliiga) for 32 years, from 1981 to 2021. In 2021, RoPS withdrew from professional football and voluntarily relegated to the amateur Kakkonen division. The club plays home games at the Rovaniemen Keskuskenttä in the Arctic Circle of Lapland.
Contents
History
RoPS have won the Finnish Cup on two occasions, in 1986 and 2013, and were runners-up in 1962. They placed third in the Finnish Premier Division in 1988 and 1989, before finishing as runner-up in 2015, losing out on the title by 1 point to eventual champions SJK. The club's most notable international achievement was reaching the quarter-finals of the European Cup-Winners' Cup in 1987–88 against Marseille.
Match fixing allegations and scandal
Throughout the 2000s, RoPS became infamous for suspected involvement in match fixing.
In spring 2011 the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation started a large investigation into match fixing. On February 25 Singaporean businessman Wilson Raj Perumal, a convicted match fixer, was arrested after entering Finland with a fake passport. The National Bureau of Investigation suspected that over 30 games between 2008 and 2011, mostly from the Finnish premier league, had been fixed or manipulated.
On July 19, 2011, the Rovaniemi Court of Appeal convicted Perumal and nine RoPS players of match-fixing. Altogether 24 games had been manipulated, and the intended score had been achieved in 11 of them. Perumal was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to return 150,000 euros deemed to be match-fixing profits. The bribes ranged from 500 euros offered to one player to a total of 80,000 euros offered to eight players. The highest total of bribes for one individual was slightly over 40,000 euros. The players received suspended sentences. The sentenced players were six Zambian and two Georgian players: Godfrey Chibanga, Chileshe Chibwe, Francis Kombe, Stephen Kunda, Christopher Musonda, Chanda Mwaba, Nchimunya Mweetwa, Pavle Khorguashvili, and Valter Khorguashvili.
European history
Notes
1R: First round
2R: Second round
1Q: First qualifying round
QF: Quarter-finals
Honours
Finnish Cup
Champions (2): 1986, 2013
Ykkönen
Champions (2): 2010, 2012
Current squad
As of 27 July 2026
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Management and boardroom
Management
As of 18 February 2020.
Boardroom
As of 18 February 2020
Rovaniemi Football Academy
Rovaniemi Football Academy (RFA) is the reserve team of RoPS. The team plays in Kakkonen in 2020 season. It is coached by Aleksi Tanner.
As of 14 September 2020
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.