List of Ukrainian football champions

Ukrainian football championship

Founded	1921 (as the Football champion of the UkrSSR)
Country	Ukraine
Confederation	UEFA
Level on pyramid	Ukrainian football league system
Current champions	Dynamo Kyiv (2020–21)

The Ukrainian football champions (Ukrainian: Чемпіон України з футболу) are currently identified at the annual football competition of the Ukrainian Premier League which is a top league football competition in the country since 2008.

The history of the title could be traced to 1921 in varying forms of competition as full-pledged nationwide competitions within the Ukrainian SSR (before it officially joined the Soviet Union).

The current champions Dynamo Kyiv has won a record 29 championship titles including 13 Soviet Union titles.

Historical outlook

The first national (or rather republican) Ukrainian football championship took place in 1921, just before the official establishment of the Soviet Union. The competition was known as the football championship of cities. It has developed out of a similar tournament that previously took place in the Russian Empire (1912). The detailed information about football competitions in 1920s and early 1930s is scarce. Remarkable is the fact that the dominant team (or teams) of that period was from Kharkiv which until 1934 was the capital of the Soviet pseudo state,^[a] Ukrainian SSR. During that time main cities of Ukraine were conducting own annual competitions among which were Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, at the same time in the east Ukraine existed a separate regional competition of Donets basin (Donbas). Winners of those regional competitions qualified for the football championship of cities, hence the name of the tournament.

Football in the West Ukraine has developed as part of the Central European football competitions that later sprang out of the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. Interrupted by the World War I, later it was completely abolished after the Polish occupation of Ukraine at the end of Polish-Ukrainian War. After Polish occupation Ukrainian clubs of West Ukraine that at first were conducting own competitions eventually joined the Polish Football Association among which are Ukraina Lwow, USC Skala Stryi and several others.

In 1936 there was established the Soviet professional football competitions, while the Ukrainian football competitions were integrated within the Soviet competition as republican and declassed to lower tiers. At the same time about three to six of the best clubs from the Soviet Ukraine competed in the Soviet Top League with Dynamo Kyiv competing in it consistently since its establishment. At same time until 1950s the Ukrainian Cup (Cup of the Ukrainian SSR) involved participation of all Ukrainian clubs regardless in which league they competed.

In 1959 a big reform occurred in the Soviet football and champion of Ukrainian football competitions was identified at the Class B football competitions for Ukraine which at first was the second and later the third tier. The Ukrainian football champions of the Soviet Union were not only unknown outside of the Soviet Union, but were also barely recognized within the Union. Nonetheless, over the span of years the Ukrainian club football was very competitive. FC Dynamo Kyiv won the record number of the Soviet top league titles and was the best Soviet club at the European club competitions. In 1991 Soviet Top League there was equal number of Ukrainian and Russian clubs in the league.

Finally after securing its independence in 1992, Ukraine conducts own national league competitions which are recognized worldwide.

List of winners before club competitions

Football competitions among Soviet clubs and Soviet sports societies

Best Ukrainian clubs in all-Union competitions

List of the best Ukrainian clubs in the top Soviet competitions^[1]

• † — Soviet tier 1
• ‡ — Soviet tier 2
• (no sign) — Soviet tier 3

List of winners of Ukrainian republican football competitions

List of winners since the post-Soviet independence

Vyshcha Liha

Season	Champion	Runner-up	Third place	Top goalscorer	Rank
1992	Tavriya Simferopol	Dynamo Kyiv	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Yuri Hudymenko (Tavriya Simferopol, 12 goals)	N/A[4]
1992–93	Dynamo Kyiv	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Chornomorets Odesa	Serhiy Husyev (Chornomorets Odesa, 17 goals)	28/39
1993–94	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Chornomorets Odesa	Timerlan Huseinov (Chornomorets Odesa, 18 goals)	24/44
1994–95	Dynamo Kyiv	Chornomorets Odesa	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Arsen Avakov (Torpedo Zaporizhzhia, 21 goals)	24/47
1995–96	Dynamo Kyiv	Chornomorets Odesa	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Timerlan Huseinov (Chornomorets Odesa, 20 goals)	19/48
1996–97	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Vorskla Poltava	Oleh Matveyev (Shakhtar Donetsk, 21 goals)	22/48
1997–98	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Karpaty Lviv	Serhii Rebrov (Dynamo Kyiv, 22 goals)	17/49
1998–99	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih	Andriy Shevchenko (Dynamo Kyiv, 18 goals)	15/50
1999–00	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih	Maksim Shatskikh (Dynamo Kyiv, 20 goals)	12/50
2000–01	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Andriy Vorobei (Shakhtar Donetsk, 21 goals)	13/51
2001–02	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Metalurh Donetsk	Serhiy Shyschenko (Metalurh Donetsk, 12 goals)	13/51
2002–03	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Metalurh Donetsk	Maksim Shatskikh (Dynamo Kyiv, 22 goals)	14/52
2003–04	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Georgi Demetradze (Metalurh Donetsk, 18 goals)	14/52
2004–05	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Metalurh Donetsk	Oleksandr Kosyrin (Chornomorets Odesa, 14 goals)	15/52
2005–06	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Chornomorets Odesa	Brandão (Shakhtar Donetsk, 15 goals) Emmanuel Okoduwa (Arsenal Kyiv, 15 goals)	13/52
2006–07	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Metalist Kharkiv	Oleksandr Hladky (FC Kharkiv, 13 goals)	11/52
2007–08	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Metalist Kharkiv (bronze stripped)	Marko Dević (Metalist Kharkiv, 19 goals)	12/53

Premier League

Season	Champion	Runner-up	Third place	Top goalscorer	Rank[5]
2008–09	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Metalist Kharkiv	Oleksandr Kovpak (Tavriya Simferopol, 17 goals)	7/53
2009–10	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Metalist Kharkiv	Artem Milevskyi (Dynamo Kyiv, 17 goals)	7/53
2010–11	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Metalist Kharkiv	Yevhen Seleznyov (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, 17 goals)	8/53
2011–12	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Metalist Kharkiv	Yevhen Seleznyov (Shakhtar Donetsk, 14 goals) Maicon (Volyn Lutsk, 14 goals)	9/53
2012–13	Shakhtar Donetsk	Metalist Kharkiv	Dynamo Kyiv	Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Shakhtar Donetsk, 25 goals)	7/53
2013–14	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Metalist Kharkiv	Luiz Adriano (Shakhtar Donetsk, 20 goals)	9/53
2014–15	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Alex Teixeira (Shakhtar Donetsk, 17 goals) Eric Bicfalvi (Volyn Lutsk, 17 goals)	8/54
2015–16	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk	Alex Teixeira (Shakhtar Donetsk, 22 goals)	8/54
2016–17	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Zorya Luhansk	Andriy Yarmolenko (Dynamo Kyiv, 15 goals)	8/55
2017–18	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Vorskla Poltava	Facundo Ferreyra (Shakhtar Donetsk, 21 goal)	8/55
2018–19	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Oleksandriya	Júnior Moraes (Shakhtar Donetsk, 19 goals)	9/55
2019–20	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dynamo Kyiv	Zorya Luhansk	Júnior Moraes (Shakhtar Donetsk, 20 goals)	9/55
2020–21	Dynamo Kyiv	Shakhtar Donetsk	Zorya Luhansk	Vladyslav Kulach (Vorskla Poltava, 15 goals)	12/55
2021–22	Competition abandoned due to Russian invasion of Ukraine			Artem Dovbyk (Dnipro-1, 14 goals)	12/55
2022–23	Shakhtar Donetsk	Dnipro-1	Zorya Luhansk	Artem Dovbyk (Dnipro-1, 24 goals)	14/55

Note: the Rank column shows the ranking of the league amongst members of UEFA.

Performance by club

Performance by club since 1992.

• Note: Defunct teams marked in Italics.

Separate notes about Soviet clubs

• FC Chornomorets Odesa, historically traces its lineage based on performance of Chornomorets only as a team of Black Sea Shipping Company with 1959 being the date of the club's establishment.
  • Since the club was acquired by Leonid Klimov, the club has also assumed history of other sports societies such as the city's trade union Kharchovyk (Pischevik), and later both FC Dynamo Odesa and Metalurh Odesa.
• FC Zorya Luhansk, always keeps the history of football club of Luhanskteplovoz, while existence of sports association of students Trudovi Rezervy also was mentioned
• FC Metalist Kharkiv, always keeps the history of football club of Malyshev Factory, while existence of the Southern Railways Lokomotyv also was mentioned, yet FC Dynamo Kharkiv not at all
• FC Dnipro, keeps history of the Yuzhmash's football club Dnepr, part of the Soviet Zenit sports society and successor of Metalurh sports society of the local Petrovsky factory that existed since 1925 as Stal. Since dissolution of the Soviet Union, historical claims were laid for club that existed since 1918.

See also

• Football in Ukraine
• Ukrainian football league system
• Soviet Top League

Notes

References and notes

External links

• (in English and Ukrainian) Football Federation of Ukraine
• (in English, Ukrainian, and Russian) Official national league website

This page was last edited on 27 October 2023, at 11:19