the club was founded in 1992 as homenetmen yerevan, and they won the first armenian premier league held. the club was renamed in 1995 to "fc pyunik" (armenian for "phoenix"). the club absorbed the newly promoted club fc armenicum and automatically gained position in the armenian premier league without playing a single game in the lower leagues. pyunik improved a lot after the arrival of many foreign players from mali, cameroon, argentina and later from romania.