 | |
| Full name | Футбо́льний Клуб «Дніпро́» Football Club Dnipro |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | кораблі (The ships) |
| Founded | 1918; 107 years ago (1918) |
| Dissolved | 2019 |
| Ground | Dnipro-Arena,Dnipro |
| Capacity | 33,993 |
| Owner | Ihor Kolomoyskyi |
| President | Ihor Kolomoyskyi |
| Latest manager | Oleksandr Poklonskyi[1] |
| League | Ukrainian Amateur League |
| 2018–19 | 8th, Group 3 |
| Website | www |
Football ClubDnipro (Ukrainian:Футбо́льний Клуб «Дніпро́»,romanized: [fʊdˈbɔlʲnɪjˈklubd⁽ʲ⁾n⁽ʲ⁾iˈprɔ]ⓘ) was a Ukrainianfootball club based inDnipro. The club played its last season in the2018–19 Ukrainian Amateur League. The club was owned by Ukrainian businessmanIhor Kolomoyskyi.
In 2018, FC Dnipro was forced into bankruptcy byFIFA due to multiple legal claims for failing to pay the promised monetary compensation to players and managers.SC Dnipro-1 formerly existed as an unofficial successor.[2]
The club was founded in 1918. During the Soviet era, the club was a member of the Soviet Volunteer Sports Society "Metallurg" (therefore it carried names Metallurg/Metalurh and Stal) and until 1961 was under sponsorship of the Petrovsky Dnipropetrovsk Metallurgical Plant. After that, the club was sponsored by the Southern Machine-building PlantYuzhmash and carried both names RussianDnepr and UkrainianDnipro, while Dnepr was also used for international competitions. During the Soviet era, the club was the second most successful club, based in Ukraine, that participated in theSoviet Top League, winning in1983 and1988. After thefall of the Soviet Union, the club was privatized.
The club was formed in 1918 by the Petrovsky factory and was called BRIT (Brianskyi Robitnychyi Industrialnyi Tekhnikum). The team participated in the regional competition, theKaterynoslav championship. BRIT played its games in the "Sokil" stadium, a small venue located at the corner of Pushkin and Yuriy Savchenko streets, which it shared with four other clubs.
With the outbreak of World War I, BRIT was disbanded until 9 May 1925, when a new team was formed in Dnipropetrovsk. The team participated during the first season under the namePetrovsky factory, which was changed in 1926 to "Petrovets." The team entered the firstSoviet competition under the name ofStal (steel) in 1936, participating in three championships before World War II. In 1947, the team re-entered the Soviet competition after merging with another club from Dnipropetrovsk,Dynamo Dnipropetrovsk. From 1949 until 1961, the team was calledMetalurh ("metal worker"). From 1950 to 1952, it was relegated to amateur status due to poor results. In 1954,Metalurh Dnipropetrovsk reached the semi-finals of theUSSR Cup, where it lost toSpartak Yerevan.
In 1961, the team was handed over to its new sponsor, theYugmash (the Southern machine-producing factory), which at that time was one of the most powerful factories in the entire Soviet Union and was funded by theMinistry of Defense. It was part of theZenit volunteer sports society. The new sponsor changed the team's name toDnepr/Dnipro after theDnieper River. For the All-Union competitions such asSoviet Cup and theSoviet Top League as well as the international competitions there was used Russian version of the name as the Russian was the accepted language of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government, while at republican level (within theUkrainian SSR) Ukrainian version of the name was used. The team's performance did not change much until after 1968, whenDnepr obtainedAndriy Biba and the new coach –Valery Lobanovsky. After that, it took the team three years to get promoted to the Soviet Top League and eventually finished in sixth place in 1972.
In 1973 and 1976, Dnepr reached the semi-finals of the USSR Cup. In 1978, the team was relegated to the lower league for two years. Their next return to the top flight was not as inviting as their first one and the team languished at the bottom of the table for several years. In the following years, the governing body of the team hired new promising coaches –Volodymyr Yemets andHennadiy Zhizdik. After those changes,Dnepr became a strong contender for theSoviet championship winning it twice: once with Yemets and Zhizdik in 1983, and another one withYevhen Kucherevsky in 1988. Also, in 1989Dnepr became the first professional football club in the Soviet Union. During those years, the team featured many notable players such asOleg Protasov,Hennadiy Lytovchenko,Oleksiy Cherednyk andOleh Taran.
Just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1989 the club was transformed into a professional football club instead of the Soviet "team of masters", a process through which all Soviet teams of masters went through. The club joined thefootball federation of the native country and remained one of the top contenders in the newly formedUkrainian Premier League. The team received a silver medal in 1993, as well as the bronze in 1992, 1995, 1996, 2001 and 2004. The team also reached theUkrainian Cup finals in 1995, 1997 and 2004, losing all three toShakhtar Donetsk. In the beginning of the 1990s the control of the club took over a native ofRivneIhor Bakai with his "Respublika" corporation who earlier in the 1980s was governor of theSKA Karpaty Lviv training center, part of theCarpathian Military District.[3] Bakai who invitedBernd Stange to Dnipro became first who hired foreign manager to head the former Soviet club.[3] At that time Bakai was a member of theVerkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) and a chairman of the Intergaz corporation which had exclusive rights of importing gas to Ukraine fromTurkmenistan and in Ukraine was unofficially referred to as the "Gaz King".[3] The experience of the former manager ofEast Germany national football team Bernd Stange inDnipro was described in the biographic book that was published in Germany in 2004 "Trainer zwischen den Welten. Bernd Stange" (Coach between the Worlds. Bernd Stange).[4]
During the summer of 1996 Dnipro initiated "repositioning" of its best players along with Bernd Stange to CSKA-Borysfen which in the previous season placed 4th just behind Dnipro.[3] Among those players wereOleksandr Yevtushok,Viktor Skrypnyk,Serhiy Kovalets,Serhiy Mizin,Andriy Polunin,Serhiy Nahornyak,Volodymyr Sharan,Oleksandr Palyanytsya.[3] However, just few day before the start of the1996–97 season in Ukrainian Vyshcha Liha (Higher League), on the joint session of the Professional Football League (PFL) and the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU),CSKA-Borysfen was taken away from its original owners and handed over to Mikhail Grinshpon ("Kiev-Donbass")[3] connected withSemion Mogilevich.[5] With the transfer of Dnipro players falling completely through, players ended up in danger of missing a season.[3]
On 14 May 2015, Dnipro qualified for the2015 UEFA Europa League Final by defeatingNapoli 1–0 in Ukraine after having drawn 1–1 in Italy, the first time in the club's history that it reached the final in a European competition.[6] Despite going up 1–0 in the sixth minute against Spanish side Sevilla, Dnipro eventually lost 3–2.[7] Despite the defeat, the match crowned one of the club's greatest seasons, during which Dnipro had to play all of their home matches some 400 kilometres away inKyiv due to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.[8] On 31 March 2016, the club was excluded byUEFA from participating in the next UEFA club competition for which it would otherwise qualify in the next three seasons (2016–17, 2017–18 and 2018–19) for violating theFinancial Fair Play regulations.[9]
In late June 2016, there were rumours that club ownerIhor Kolomoyskyi had stopped funding the club.[10] Kolomoyskyi immediately denied this but did state, "The club will not exist in the same form as before;" and that it was "not normal to spend crazy amounts of money" to keep the current squad intact.[10]
The 2016–17 season was disastrous for Dnipro. Due to outstanding debts owed to coachJuande Ramos and his staff, the FFU prevented Dnipro from signing new players other than free agents. On 26 October 2016, Dnipro was assessed a penalty of 6 points for the same reason. In April 2017, 3 additional points were deducted. At the conclusion of the 2016–2017 season, Dnipro were relegated directly to theUkrainian Second League (third level) for the first time in club history.
In the 2017–18 season, the club with a new squad started well in the Group B of the Second League, for 13 matches in row going on high positions (second-fourth places). But the points have been deducted once more with their number reaching up to 18 until the end of the season, which resulted in club finishing on 8th place.
On 7 June 2018, FIFA decided to once more relegate the club and for the2018–19 season the club was to play in theAmateur League.[11] In the2019–20 Amateur League the club did not participate.[11][12] In 2019, some players, coaching, and managing staff joinedSC Dnipro-1, particularly the whole coaching staff of Dnipro in full composition was appointed to the Dnipro-1's under-21 team.[13]
On 22 February 2021, FIFA dismissed the claim ofJaba Kankava who appealed with a request to recognize SC Dnipro-1 a sports successor of FC Dnipro in order to recover his unpaid salary from FC Dnipro.[2]
Soon after being promoted to the Pervaya Liga (Soviet First League), in 1971[14][15] FC Dnipro built its own training grounds in a remote neighborhood ofDnipro,Prydniprovsk. Until 1971, the senior team's reserves were based at the Yuzhmash resort "Dubrava".
Since 1966, Dnipro's home wasMeteor Stadium in Dnipropetrovsk. Prior to that, the club played at the Metalurh Stadium (formerly Stal Stadium). Meteor Stadium was built by the Soviet rocket companyYuzhmash on the original site and has undergone several renovations since, the last one being in 2001. In 2002, however, after several spells in European competitions, it became clear that the club needed a new modern venue. Thus, in 2005, Pryvat Group started construction ofDnipro Arena in the centre of the city. The club played its last game at Meteor on 2 September 2008, againstMetalist Kharkiv.
In April 2005, the club's new arena broke ground. It was constructed by Germany's largest construction companyHochtief. The construction itself took three years and four months, but a nine-month delay occurred due to a land dispute over a site where the stadium's car park was planned. The stadium's final capacity is 31,003 people and the initial estimated cost of the construction was set at €40 million.
The stadium was opened on 15 September 2008. The opening ceremony featured a speech byUkrainian presidentViktor Yushchenko, a concert performance by a number of famous Ukrainian musicians and two football matches: Veterans ofDynamo Kyiv vs.Spartak Moscow veterans, and Dnipro against Dynamo Kyiv. As a gift to the club from the city, the street that the stadium is situated on was renamed into Kucherevskyi Boulevard, in honour of Dnipro's late coachYevhen Kucherevskyi. Dnipro played their first official game on 29 September 2008 against their local rivalsMetalurh Zaporizhya, but Dnipro lost 1–2. They set a new attendance record for the Ukrainian Premier League2008–09 season at 31,000 spectators.
Since the beginning of theRusso-Ukrainian War, Dnipro have played their European matches at theOlympic Stadium inKyiv at the behest ofUEFA, although there has been comparatively less conflict in Dnipropetrovsk than other areas.[16]
The first fan club in Dnipropetrovsk (todayDnipro) was officially registered by the city executive committee (ispolkom) on 25 July 1968.[17] Before registration, the initiative group brought its draft of the fan's club statute and program to the regional committee of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union, department in control of development and propaganda of physical culture and sport in the region which imposed a resolution of approval with a signature, seal and date. Later the group met with the Dnipro head coach Leonid Rodos and his assistant.
The formation of the fan movement in Dnipropetrovsk began in the early 1980s, which saw the appearance of the first representatives of Dnipro ultras at the stadium. Later was established one of the largest fans unions – theBraty po Zbroyi (English:Brothers in Arms) – involving Dnipro,Dynamo Kyiv andKarpaty Lviv.
Most of the fans hold right-wing ideological views (Ukrainian nationalism). Dnipro is considered the third most popular club in Ukraine, and home and away matches are attended by large crowds. The largest Dnipro ultras groups are theVoice of the North Stand (Ukrainian:Рупор Північної Трибуни) andUltras'83 (Ukrainian:Ультрас'83).
The most famous derby in eastern Ukraine is theSkhidne Derby (English: Eastern Derby) between Dnipro andMetalist Kharkiv. The game at the stadium is very hard and almost every game ends in a fight between football fans from Dnipropetrovsk andKharkiv. There was also a city derby in Dnipropetrovsk between Dnipro andKryvbas Kryvyi Rih. In May 2016, Metalist Kharkiv was removed from Ukraine's professional football leagues.[18] Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih is, after its 2013 bankruptcy, an amateur club.[19][20]
| Years[21] | Football kit | Shirt sponsor |
|---|---|---|
| 1998–2001 | Adidas | TM Biola |
| 2001–2005 | TM Biola | |
| 2005–2008 | Umbro | |
| 2008–2019 | Nike |
         1983 |    1988 |    1991 |     1992 |      1992 |   1993 | 2000 | 2000 |  2011 |   2013 |   2014 |
Several players have won individual awards during or for their time with Dnipro
Hennadiy Litovchenko (1984)Oleh Protasov (1987)Ukrainian Footballer of the Year
Oleh Taran (1983)Hennadiy Litovchenko (1984)Oleh Venhlynskyi (2003)Yevhen Konoplyanka (2010, 2012)Ruslan Rotan (2016)Ukrainian Premier League[23] Footballer of the Year
Oleh Protasov (1987)Mykola Kudrytsky (1989)Yevhen Konoplyanka (2013)Note: Flags indicate national team as defined underFIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
|
|
| Administration[26] | Coaching[27] |
|---|---|
|
|
| Tier | Years | Last | Promotions | Relegations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top League (tier 1) | 19 | 1991 | 6 times toEurope |  1 (1978) |
| First League (tier 2) | 26 | 1980 |  2 (1980) | 1 (1949) |
| Gruppa G (tier 4) | 1 | 1937 | — | — |
| Ukraine (republican) (tier 3) | 1 | 1950 | — | — |
| 45 years of professional football in Soviet Union since 1936 | ||||
| Tier | Years | Last | Promotions | Relegations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premier League (tier 1) | 26 | 2016–17 | 14 times toEurope | 1 (2016–17) |
| Second League (tier 3) | 1 | 2017–18 | none | 1 (2017–18) |
| Amateur League (tier 4) | 1 | 2018–19 | — | — |
| 27 years of professional national football in Ukraine since 1992 | ||||
FC Dnipro participates in European competitions since 1984 after playing its first againstTrabzonspor. Since 2001, however, the club participates almost on annual basis with variable successes. This was interrupted in 2016, when, despite finishing third place, Dnipro was forbidden to play in the European competitions by UEFA.
| Season | Stage | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| European Cup / UEFA Champions League | |||
| 1984–85 | Quarter-Finalist | eliminated by Bordeaux 1–1 in Bordeaux, 1–1 in Dnipropetrovsk | |
| 1989–90 | Quarter-Finalist | eliminated by Benfica 0–1 in Lisbon, 0–3 in Dnipropetrovsk | |
| UEFA Cup / UEFA Europa League | |||
| 2014–15 | Finalist | defeated by Sevilla 2–3 in Warsaw | |
Jules Limbeck (1936)
Nikolai Morozov (1956)
Valeriy Lobanovskyi (1969–73)Viktor Kanevskyi (1973–77)Yozhef Sabo (1978–79)Volodymyr Yemets (1 July 1981 – 31 December 1986)Yevhen Kucherevskyi (1 January 1987 – 22 March 1992)Mykola Pavlov (19 March 1992 – 31 December 1994)
Bernd Stange (20 April 1995 – 30 June 1996)Vyacheslav Hroznyi (1 July 1996 – 31 December 1997)Vadym Tyshchenko (1 January 1998 – 5 October 1998)Mykola Fedorenko (13 July 1999 – 11 October 2001)Yevhen Kucherevskyi (1 January 2002 – 18 October 2005)Vadym Tyshchenko(interim) (18 October 2005 – 19 December 2005)Oleh Protasov (19 December 2005 – 29 August 2008)Volodymyr Bezsonov (29 August 2008 – 18 September 2010)Vadym Tyshchenko(interim) (18 September 2010 – 1 October 2010)Juande Ramos (3 October 2010 – 22 May 2014)[29]Myron Markevych (26 May 2014 – 30 June 2016)Dmytro Mykhaylenko(caretaker) (30 June 2016 – 30 June 2017)Oleksandr Poklonskyi (30 June 2017 – End of season 2018/2019)
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