The 2026/27 summer window: every APL club, every signing, and what the early evidence already says
The Armenian Premier League expanded to 12 clubs this summer, and the squads that will fill it were rebuilt almost from scratch. 77 players arrived. 122 left.
Some of those signings have already played competitive football. Four Armenian clubs went into European qualifying in July, which means that for a couple of dozen new players we are no longer guessing — we can look at who started, who scored, and who has not got off the bench yet.
This is a club-by-club account of the window, and where the evidence exists, we use it.
Where the players came from
A notable feature of this window is the amount of internal movement within the league. Of the 77 arrivals Transfermarkt records, 32 came from another Armenian Premier League club. Rather than bringing in many new players from abroad, clubs largely rotated the existing pool of talent.
38 of the 77 are Armenian, and it is worth being precise about where those thirty-eight came from, because it is not a separate group of players — 28 of them are the same men who moved between APL clubs.
The other 4 of the 32 who moved between APL clubs are foreign: Doumbia and Dombila from Ararat to Noah, and Lobusov from Gandzasar to Ararat. So the carousel is overwhelmingly an Armenian one, and the handful of players who arrived from outside the country are almost all of the imports the league added this summer.
These imports are concentrated across a few nationalities (8 Brazilians, 6 Portuguese, 3 Ghanaians, 3 Nigerians) and belong to just three clubs, highlighting their specific recruitment strategies.
One thing worth flagging before the club sections. 13 of the 77 arrivals are players coming back from loan spells rather than new signings, and they are marked as such below. They were always returning. Strip them out and the 12 clubs made about 60 genuine additions between them.
Ararat-Armenia
The champions lost a centre-back who played 2,255 league minutes and a goalkeeper who played 1,710, replacing them with new arrivals from abroad. A month later, these new signings have helped Ararat-Armenia progress past Riga and Shamrock Rovers.
In
from FC Penafiel (Liga Portugal 2, Portugal)
from no club
from Persijap Jepara (Indonesia Super League, Indonesia)
from CD Santa Clara (Primeira Liga, Portugal)
from Ethnikos Achna (First Division, Cyprus)
from AS Nancy-Lorraine (Ligue 2, France)
from FC Alverca (Primeira Liga, Portugal)
from CD Feirense (Liga Portugal 2, Portugal) (loan return)
from BKMA Yerevan (loan return)
from FC Noah Yerevan (loan return)
from Gandzasar Kapan (loan return)
Out
left the club
to Leça FC (Campeonato de Portugal, Portugal)
to FC Ararat Yerevan
to Alashkert Yerevan FC
to CD Tondela (Primeira Liga, Portugal)
to Raja Club Athletic (Botola Pro, Morocco)
to FC Van
to FC Syunik
to Berço SC (Campeonato de Portugal, Portugal)
What Europe has shown
Ararat-Armenia have played 4 Champions League qualifiers: 2:0 against Riga at home, 3:2 down in Latvia, 2:0 against Shamrock Rovers in Yerevan, 2:1 down in Dublin. Through 3:2 on aggregate, and Celje are next.
Sandro Lima has made the fastest start of any arrival. He is 35, he arrived from Alverca, and he has started all 4 qualifiers and scored 3 times — in Riga on 63 minutes, against Shamrock Rovers at home on 51, and in Dublin on 73, the goal that ultimately settled the tie. Nobody else at any Armenian club has scored more than one in Europe this season.
França's contribution is a different shape and just as useful. He has not started a match. 4 appearances, all off the bench, and in that time he scored the second against Riga on 86 minutes and set up Banjaqui for the goal that made it 2:0 against Shamrock Rovers. A 31-year-old who changes tight games from the bench is a useful thing to have.
Bravim has taken the goalkeeping job without argument — 4 starts, 2 clean sheets. Replacing Bruno Pinto looked like the riskiest part of the rebuild and currently looks solved. Bruno Wilson's progression is even clearer: he came on as a substitute at 44 minutes in the first leg against Riga and has started every match since.
Carlier and Bruno Pereira are rotating through the side. Luis Felipe has only appeared late.
There is a knock-on effect worth thinking about, because Ararat-Armenia are now guaranteed European football into the autumn. That turns their season into a Thursday-Sunday one, and it changes who plays when. Sandro Lima looks like the first-choice forward for the European nights; the domestic weekends are where a squad gets shared out. Ndour and Eloyan have barely featured in qualifying, and a crowded calendar is exactly how players in their position end up with a league season's worth of minutes.
The champions have successfully integrated their new replacements and look well-prepared for the new season.
Noah
Despite having some of the best underlying numbers last season (61 scored, 19 conceded, 16 clean sheets) and finishing second, Noah underwent a major squad rebuild.
In
from FC Koper (PrvaLiga, Slovenia)
from FC Ararat Yerevan
from Gil Vicente FC (Primeira Liga, Portugal)
from BKMA Yerevan
from FC Ararat Yerevan
from Burgos CF (Segunda División, Spain)
from FC Pyunik Yerevan II
from Aberdeen FC (Scottish Premiership, Scotland)
from FC Botosani (SuperLiga, Romania)
from Grenoble Foot 38 (Ligue 2, France)
Out
to FK Vojvodina Novi Sad (Serbian SuperLiga, Serbia)
to SC Farense (Liga Portugal 2, Portugal)
to Jeju SK (K League 1, South Korea)
to SC Farense (Liga Portugal 2, Portugal)
to Dinamo Batumi (Erovnuli Liga, Georgia)
to FC Sion (Swiss Super League, Switzerland)
to Iraklis Thessaloniki (Super League 2, Greece)
left the club
to Gandzasar Kapan
Plus two more departures with no league minutes last season.
The list of departures is significant. Mulahusejnović and Aiás contributed 20 goals, while Oulad Omar added 3 goals and 4 assists, meaning Noah lost players responsible for a large portion of their attacking output. They also overhauled their goalkeeping setup after keeping 16 clean sheets last season.
The Lazetić question
Marko Lazetić is one of the more notable arrivals this summer, and the CV explains why: Red Star Belgrade to AC Milan at eighteen, Serbia youth international at every level.
His senior league output has been more modest, however.
At 22, he comes off his most productive season, though his overall senior league goal tally is still developing. It will be interesting to see how he adapts to the Armenian league.
What Europe has shown
One match so far, a 1:1 draw away at Zimbru, with the home leg to come. That is a small sample and should be read as one.
Stone Mambo started at centre-back and played the full ninety; he looked exactly like the sort of Ligue 2 defender who tends to travel well to this league. Figueira started in goal. Mario González started and was taken off on 64 minutes having had chances he did not take. Lazetić came on in his place and did not score in his 26 minutes, which tells you nothing about anybody. Oddei came on at half-time.
Two things stood out more than any of that. Kalifala Doumbia — ten goals last season, one of the more interesting players in the country — was an unused substitute. So was Pavlović. And when the goal finally came on 88 minutes, it was scored by Costache and made by Manvelyan, both of whom were already at the club.
Noah's window is ambitious but carries some risk, as they try to replace a large portion of last season's goals. The new squad will likely need time to gel and build chemistry.
Pyunik
Pyunik finished third with the second-best defence in the league and then lost almost the entire foreign contingent. Javi Moreno, Ocansey, Alemão, Miljković and Noubissi took 8,088 league minutes and 16 goals out of the squad between them, leaving Pyunik with a considerable amount of experience to replace in a single window.
In
from FC Urartu Yerevan
from FC Noah Yerevan
from Olympiakos Nicosia (First Division, Cyprus)
from Roda JC Kerkrade (Eerste Divisie, Netherlands)
from CD Nacional (Primeira Liga, Portugal)
from FC Van (loan return)
Out
to Real Murcia CF (Primera Federación, Spain)
left the club
to FK Novi Pazar (Serbian SuperLiga, Serbia)
left the club
to Alashkert Yerevan FC
left the club
to Ural Yekaterinburg (Russian First League, Russia)
left the club
What Europe has shown
Pyunik beat Marsaxlokk 4:0 on aggregate and then lost the first leg in Hungary. Three matches, and the useful thing they tell us is about the pecking order — which is not what you would guess from the names.
Hovhannes Harutyunyan has started all three. The signing from Noah is already a fixture in the side and is currently the most successful piece of business Pyunik did. Mohamed Yansané, meanwhile, is still very clearly the first-choice forward: he started in Malta, scored the penalty that opened the tie, and started again at Debrecen.
Which leaves the new attackers waiting. Pikis has 1 start in 3 — on as a substitute in Malta, started the home leg and came off on 60, on again on 66 in Hungary. Griffith has 3 substitute appearances and no starts. Witi has played 24 minutes in total, arriving too late to do much else.
It is genuinely too early to judge this. Pyunik removed 8,088 minutes of experience and the replacements have barely played together. Harutyunyan looks an immediate success; the rest are not yet ahead of the players who were already there. It remains to be seen how this squad overhaul will play out during the league season.
Alashkert
Alashkert lost the most-used player of the entire window and rebuilt largely through West Africa. Klaidher played 2,340 league minutes last season, more than anyone else who left an Armenian club this summer, and Gareginyan retired after 1,650. Replacing this core will be a key challenge for Alashkert.
In
from FC Shamakhi (Azerbaijan Premier League, Azerbaijan)
from FC Pyunik Yerevan
from FDC Vista Gelendzhik (amateur football, Russia)
from FK Gabala (Azerbaijan Premier League, Azerbaijan)
from FC Ararat-Armenia
from FDC Vista Gelendzhik (amateur football, Russia)
from Montana (First League, Bulgaria)
from FC Andranik (loan return)
from Gandzasar Kapan (loan return)
from FC Andranik (loan return)
from Gandzasar Kapan (loan return)
Out
to Kaysar Kyzylorda (Kazakhstan Premier League)
to retired
to Grêmio Osasco Audax (SP) (Campeonato Paulista Série A3, Brazil)
to Spartak Kostroma (Russian First League, Russia)
to Al-Fujairah SC (First Division, United Arab Emirates)
left the club
to FC Van
left the club
to Torpedo Moscow (Russian First League, Russia)
to Al-Wasl SC (UAE Pro League, United Arab Emirates)
Plus three more, none of whom started a league match last season.
What Europe has shown
Three matches: 1:1 at home to Yelimay Semey, 2:2 in Kazakhstan and through on penalties, then 1:1 with CFR Cluj in Yerevan.
Cézar has started all 3 at centre-back. He is the direct replacement for Klaidher and he took the job on arrival, which is about as smooth as a replacement of that size gets.
Massoumou is the one to wait on. He started the first leg against Yelimay and was withdrawn at half-time, then came on at half-time in the second leg, then came on at half-time again against Cluj. 1 start, 3 half-times. The talent is not in question; the place in the side is. Ejike has come on at 77, 75 and 77 minutes — a late option rather than a starter. Togola and Adebayo, both 18, have had brief cameos, though Togola marked his with a goal in the second leg in Kazakhstan. Both are best understood as development signings.
The defensive replacement has worked. The attacking ones have not settled. Alashkert are still in Europe, which is the measure that matters this month.
Ararat Yerevan
Ararat Yerevan had a very distinct transfer strategy this summer. Ararat conceded 63 goals and scored 21, and their response was to rebuild almost entirely with Armenian players. 3 of the arrivals — Lobusov, Khachatryan and Alaverdyan — came from Gandzasar alone. The headline name is Varazdat Haroyan, the former national team captain, back in the league at 33.
In
from Gandzasar Kapan
from FC Van
from Chania City FC (Super League 2, Greece)
from FC Ararat-Armenia
from Gandzasar Kapan
from BKMA Yerevan
from no club
Out
to FC Noah Yerevan
to FC Van
to FC Urartu Yerevan
to FC Noah Yerevan
left the club
left the club
left the club
left the club
Losing Doumbia will be a significant challenge to overcome. He scored 10 of Ararat's 21 league goals — close to half the club's attacking output — and he left for the team that scored sixty-one.
Haroyan and Benik Hovhannisyan give the dressing room something it did not have last season, and Lobusov behind a back line that shipped 63 goals is the more urgent fix. Despite strengthening the defence, finding consistent goalscoring remains a key priority for Ararat Yerevan.
Urartu
Urartu finished 5th, lost 7 players, and only one of them — Nicholas Kaloukian, 4 goals and 3 assists in 870 minutes — produced much.
In
from FC Ararat Yerevan
from FC Osaka (Japan Football League, Japan)
from BKMA Yerevan
from Leixões SC U23 (Liga Revelação, Portugal)
from FC Shamakhi (Azerbaijan Premier League, Azerbaijan)
from FC Sardarapat (loan return)
from BKMA Yerevan (loan return)
Out
to Carolina Core FC (MLS NEXT Pro, United States)
to Volna Kovernino (Russian Second League, Russia)
to FC Sardarapat
to AEP Polemidia (Second Division, Cyprus)
to FC Pyunik Yerevan
left the club
left the club
2 of the significant additions came from BKMA, and Petik Manukyan played 1,819 league minutes last season, which puts him among the most-used players in the division.
In a summer marked by widespread squad overhauls, Urartu's decision to keep their core group together while making targeted additions could prove to be a sensible approach.
Gandzasar Kapan
22 players out, 5 in. Nobody in the league lost more, and the back line and goalkeeper went almost as a set — three of them to Ararat Yerevan.
In
from Alashkert Yerevan FC
from FC Noah Yerevan
from First Vienna FC (2. Liga, Austria)
from Athletic Club (Série B, Brazil)
from AD Sanjoanense (Campeonato de Portugal, Portugal)
Out
to Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv (Liga Leumit, Israel)
to FC Ararat Yerevan
left the club
to FC Ararat Yerevan
left the club
to FC Ararat-Armenia
to FC Syunik
to NK Olimpija Ljubljana (PrvaLiga, Slovenia)
to UD Santarém (Liga 3, Portugal)
Plus twelve more. The scale is the point: this was not a trim, it was a clear-out.
The replacements are a goalkeeper, a defensive midfielder and three attacking players. Anatoliy Ayvazov is the experienced one, and Artem Avanesyan the one with top-flight goals behind him. The two most interesting are imports nobody here has seen: João Adriano, a Brazilian winger, and Tomás Rocha, a 22-year-old Portuguese left winger arriving from AD Sanjoanense in the Portuguese fourth tier, out of contract at the end of June. Both are the sort of signing a club at this end of the table has to get right, because there is no budget to correct it in January.
With 22 departures and just 5 additions, Gandzasar faces a challenging season ahead in the expanded 12-team league.
Van
Van lost their two most-used defenders and their best midfielder, and what came back is hard to defend on paper. None of the arrivals comes with a reputation, and three are on loan.
In
from Eendracht Termien U21 (under-21 reserve side, Belgium)
from FC Pyunik Yerevan II (loan)
from FC Van II
from FC Van II
from FC Ararat-Armenia (loan)
from Alashkert Yerevan FC
from BKMA Yerevan (loan return)
from FC Ararat Yerevan
from FC Ararat Yerevan
Out
left the club
to Odishi 1919 (Erovnuli Liga 2, Georgia)
to FC Ararat Yerevan
to FC Toktogul (Kyrgyz Premier League, Kyrgyzstan)
to FC Pyunik Yerevan
left the club
to FC Pyunik Yerevan II
to FC Samgurali Tskaltubo (Erovnuli Liga, Georgia)
left the club
left the club
Plus four more, all fringe players.
Sixth place was not a platform to gamble from.
BKMA Yerevan
BKMA continued their typical development cycle. 6 players moved up to bigger Armenian clubs and the best forward, Grenik Petrosyan, went abroad to Belarus.
What makes BKMA worth watching is that the pipeline runs both ways. While those 6 moved up, 7 more moved in — teenagers, mostly out of the academies and second teams of the clubs that had just signed BKMA's graduates.
In
from Noah
from Pyunik
from Ararat-Armenia
from Noah II (loan)
Out
to Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino (Belarusian Premier League, Belarus)
to FC Urartu Yerevan
to FC Urartu Yerevan
to FC Ararat-Armenia
to FC Pyunik Yerevan II
to FC Ararat Yerevan
to Deportivo Alavés C (Tercera Federación, Spain)
to FC Ararat Yerevan II
to FC Noah Yerevan
Plus one more.
The logic is simple enough. A teenager on the bench at Noah or Ararat-Armenia does not play. The same teenager at BKMA plays every week. Asiryan is the clearest case: he came from Noah, where he managed 35 league minutes all season, and he should now get a full campaign at an age when that is worth more than anything else.
Keep an eye on this group. If 2 or 3 of them come through, they are next summer's transfers to the clubs above — which is precisely what just happened to Grenik Petrosyan, Petik Manukyan and Michel Ayvazyan.
Sardarapat
Sardarapat enters the division with notable ambitions, highlighted by their partnership with RC Lens. Most of the squad has no top-flight record, so there is a lot we cannot judge yet, but the intent is not in doubt.
In
from no club
from FC Urartu Yerevan
from FC Pyunik Yerevan
from no club
Out
to FC Urartu Yerevan
left the club
left the club
left the club
left the club
to FC Pyunik Yerevan II
The goalkeeper is the signing worth dwelling on. Gor Matinyan arrives from Urartu having played 540 minutes there last season, and a promoted side that lands a keeper from a club that finished 5th and kept 13 clean sheets has done well out of the summer. Artur Danielyan arrives having spent last season at Van, where the right-back made 4 starts and scored in 343 league minutes — which makes him one of the few players at the club who has actually done this before. Levon Petrosyan joins from Pyunik after spending last season on loan at Gandzasar.
Ousmane Konaté signed as late as 29 July, which suggests the squad was still taking shape in the final days before the season.
Syunik and Shirak
The five best signings of the window
Ranking transfers needs a stated method, so here is ours. We looked at what a player brings from his last club, whether his new club actually needed it, and how likely he is to play. Where somebody has already featured in Europe, that outweighs everything else — it is the only competitive football any of these players have had in Armenian colours.
Four more deserve a word. Bruno Wilson went from substitute in the first leg against Riga to starting every match since. Stone Mambo looked a solid addition for Noah across ninety minutes in Moldova. Varazdat Haroyan is a former national team captain joining a defence that conceded 63 goals, which is the kind of experience that side has been short of. And Artem Avanesyan is the kind of signing Gandzasar had to make: a midfielder with top-flight experience arriving at a club that lost twenty-two players and scored twenty goals all season.
One name people will expect here and will not find is Kalifala Doumbia. 10 goals for a side that scored 21 is a real season, and joining Noah is a real upgrade, but he was an unused substitute in Moldova and he has González, Lazetić and Oddei around him.
There is a good counter-argument, though, and it is the sort of thing that decides selections in this league far more often than form does. Doumbia is Malian, but he came to Armenia young enough to count as Armenia-trained, which means he does not occupy a foreigner slot. Noah's squad is full of players who do. In a domestic matchday squad that must carry 9 Armenia-trained players with 3 on the pitch at all times, Doumbia is a forward who scores goals and costs the manager nothing to pick.
That matters most in exactly the situation Noah are hoping to be in. If they go deep in Europe, the expensive imports — González, Lazetić — will be needed on Thursdays, and the domestic weekend becomes the place to rotate. Doumbia is the one attacker who solves both problems at once. He may be third choice in Europe and first choice in the league, and only one of those affects the title.
The gambles
Lazetić sits fifth on the list above and top of this one, which is the honest position: 5 senior league goals in 5 seasons, and everything still to prove. Noah's goalkeeping rebuild is the structural gamble nobody is talking about — sixteen clean sheets last season, and every goalkeeper changed. And Van's whole window is a gamble taken from sixth place, which is a strange position to gamble from.
The departures that will hurt
Alashkert → Kaysar Kyzylorda (Kazakhstan Premier League, Kazakhstan)
Pyunik → Real Murcia (Primera Federación, Spain)
BKMA → Torpedo-BelAZ (Belarusian Premier League, Belarus)
Van → released
Ararat Yerevan → Noah
What it means for Fantasy
These are the first real prices the Armenian Premier League Fantasy game has had, so there is no history to compare against and no risers or fallers to report. We priced projected role and minutes rather than reputation, added a premium for goalkeepers and defenders at the clubs likely to finish top, and discounted anyone whose place in the side is not settled.
Three worth considering. Sandro Lima has scored more in European qualifying than any other player at an Armenian club, and his age is doing more to suppress interest than that record deserves. Hovhannes Harutyunyan at 8.0 has started every European match in a side still working out its best eleven, which is the closest thing to guaranteed minutes at the top of the price list. And the Ararat-Armenia defence looks like the strongest structural bet in the game: Bravim has 2 clean sheets in 4 European matches, with Bruno Wilson starting the last 3 in front of him.
Doumbia at 8.5 is the interesting one, and the case for him is a squad rule rather than anything you saw in Moldova. He counts as Armenia-trained despite being Malian, so he does not take up a foreigner slot in a Noah squad packed with players who do. Fantasy scoring is built on domestic rounds, and the domestic round is precisely where that protection bites — especially if Noah are still in Europe and rotating González and Lazetić towards Thursdays. He may be third choice on the nights that make headlines and first choice on the ones that score you points.
Two to be careful with. Lazetić at 10.5 is a tenth of your budget on a player with 26 minutes at the club — he may well come good, but there is no need to pay for the first month of it. Witi and Griffith have played 24 minutes and 3 substitute cameos between them, and Yansané is still ahead of them.
As for waiting: everyone at Syunik, Sardarapat and Shirak, plus most of what Van and Gandzasar brought in. There is no competitive data on these players at all, and the ones who end up starting will still be affordable in round 3.
One group to watch rather than buy: BKMA's teenagers. They are all at minimum price and several will play every week, which is the profile that becomes a cheap points source by midseason. Give it 3 rounds, see who is starting, then move.
The bottom line
On the evidence available at the end of July, Ararat-Armenia recruited best. They lost a 2,255-minute centre-back and a 1,710-minute goalkeeper, replaced both, and are in the third round of Champions League qualifying with Sandro Lima scoring three times and Bravim keeping two clean sheets. Of the four clubs who have played competitive football so far, they are the ones whose new players have contributed most.
Noah underwent the most significant squad overhaul, looking to replace a large chunk of last season's attacking output with several new profiles. It will be interesting to see how quickly the new pieces come together.
Pyunik also faces a substantial rebuild after losing key minutes from last season's squad, all while navigating the early rounds of European qualification.
Gandzasar and Van face uphill battles after losing significant numbers of players ahead of the expanded league season.
The season starts on 31 July. The first thing worth watching is which of Noah's four new forwards is on the pitch when it does.
Transfer data from Transfermarkt as of 30 July 2026, with BKMA's intake taken from club records. European match data from the 2026/27 UEFA qualifying rounds. Last season's league records from competition-filtered Transfermarkt minutes and assists and FFA match reports. Shirak's summer window is not documented by any source we could verify.