FC Karpaty Lviv

Karpaty Lviv

Full name	Футбольний клуб "Карпати" Львів
Nickname(s)	The Lions, Zeleno-Bili (The Green-Whites)
Founded	1963; 62 years ago (1963)
Ground	Ukraina Stadium, Lviv
Capacity	28,051
Owner	Zakhidnyi Buh[1][2][3][4] Unikom Group[3] Shvydkyi svit[3]
Director	Stepan Yurchyshyn
Head coach	Vladyslav Lupashko
League	Ukrainian Premier League
2023–24	Ukrainian First League, 2nd of 16 (promoted)
Website	fckarpaty.org.ua
Home colours Away colours
Current season

Football Club Karpaty Lviv (Ukrainian: Футбольний клуб "Карпати" Львів [kɐrˈpɑtɪ ˈlʲwiu̯]) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Lviv.

In 2020–21 the club was reorganized and changed owner. During that period there existed two clubs with the same name, one at professional level competitions, another at amateur.

The team of Karpaty was founded on 18 January,

In the Soviet times all sport teams were "tied" to certain industrial unions or sport societies, therefore Karpaty joined the republican sport society of trade unions "Avanhard", while the Lviv Television Production Plant "Elektron" became its sponsor. Out of "Silmash" only two joined Karpaty: Ihor Kulchytskyi and Josef Fales. Karpaty also adopted the same jersey colors of Silmash. Also the club was reinforced with several players from SKA Lvov and transfers. The club played its first game on 14 April 1964 against Zenit Izhevsk at the Dynamo Stadium (today – the location of the building of the Regional Tax Administration) winning it 1–0. The goal was scored by the club's captain Oleksandr Filiayev. The first official game was against Lokomotiv Gomel on 23 April 1963, which Karpaty won 1–0 (goal scored by Anatoliy Kroshchenko).

Karpaty debuted in Group B in 1963 and remained there for four seasons, until in 1968 they were promoted to Soviet First League.

On 17 August 1969, Karpaty became the first (and the only) club in the

When we went out for a warm up, there sat a sector of Lviv fans, some four thousand people. And the "

Cheremshyna" was played on the accordion

.

...That song [with the lyrics] – "again the cheremshyna will be blooming...", that sounded over the stadium, did something incredible to us – from that excitement my tears came up...

In the second half the Ukrainians broke the course of the game flow and two goals from Lykhachov and Bulhakov put the Lions ahead. Near the end of the game the Rostov team scored another goal, but it was given offside. The match referee, without consulting his assistants, initially allowed the goal and the Russians ran joyfully towards the center of the field. However, a moment later, he noticed the raised flag from Härms who had identified an offside and reversed his decision, awarding the victory to Lviv.

In the following season, Karpaty's first opponent in the

In 1970–77 and 1980, Karpaty played in the Soviet Top League. Karpaty's best achievement was 4th place in 1976. Karpaty placed 4th twice that year since the season was split into 2 separate championships (spring and fall). Karpaty were primed to win silver that season, but an unexpected loss in their last home game to Zenit Leningrad pushed Karpaty back into 4th place.

While playing in the Soviet First League in 1979, Karpaty were close to repeating their 1969 achievement, when they met Dynamo Moscow in the USSR Cup semi-final. The match, which was played in Moscow, went into overtime with a 1–1 score with Dynamo prevailing in the end, scoring a penalty kick in extra time.

In 1981, Karpaty were merged with another city team,

The newly created SKA Karpaty were playing in red and white colors, and traditional green and white colors were banned.[9] Militsiya were watching that fans would not bring to stands any green markings.^[9] The club's attendance fell immediately.^[9] Back in 1980 the Karpaty's home games were visited on average by 20-25 thousands spectators.^[9] In the first season after merging of the Lviv teams at stadium were gathering about 5-6 thousands spectators.^[9] The newly arrived footballers also did not stay long with the army club and were leaving as soon as their military service was terminated.^[9]

SKA Karpaty continued playing in the Soviet First League until 1989,^[9] getting close to promotion in 1986, when CSKA Moscow was promoted ahead of Karpaty on goal difference. As their highest achievement, SKA Karpaty placed third place twice while being coached by Volodymyr Bulhakov.^[9] After that their performance worsened.^[9] If in 1987 the club managed to place the fifth place, after two more years it literally hit the hard bottom placing dead last.^[9] It lost 18 of its 21 away games and its losing streak reached 15 games.^[9] To one of home games came to watch only 54 spectators, which was the absolute anti-record of the season.^[9]

The Karpaty's revival started with publication in a newspaper.^[9] In 1983 journalist and writer Ivan Salo wrote a critical article "Football... outside of play"^[9] (Ukrainian: Футбол...поза грою, in Ukrainian "outside of play" phrase is actually used for football term of offside). Now due to censorship in the Soviet Union, it dared to be printed only in four years in newspaper "Leninska molod" (The Lenin's Youth).^[9] The author was demanding to separate SKA Karpaty into two teams as it was earlier.^[9] The subject was expanded by "Sportyvna Hazeta" (The Sports Gazette).^[9] In November–December 1988 the publisher held a rally "Ya, mama, tato – za komandu Karpaty" (Mother, father and I – for the Karpaty team).^[9] The newspaper succeeded to gather 70,000 signatures from the whole Ukraine.^[9] After that the case actually moved from standstill.^[9] The Lviv delegation departed to Kyiv for negotiations with republican football federation (Ukrainian SSR, precursor of UAF).^[9] Negotiations also were held with Moscow.^[9]

Finally on 5 January 1989 at 15:00 in office No.290 of the State Committee on Sports of the Soviet Union at Luzhniki Embankment in Moscow was signed the certificate about revival of the Karpaty football team.^[9] His signature placed the future president of the Football Federation of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Koloskov.^[9] And on 10 January in "Sportyvna Hazeta" was printed a text titled "The birthday of the club".^[9] It has been seven years from the moment of the Karpaty's liquidation.^[9] The Lions began to play from the Second League (Zone 5, not Zone 6 with the rest "Ukrainian" teams), and SKA continued to play in the First.^[9]

The revival of the club was taken over by leadership of the Elektron Factory (television manufacturer), at facilities of which in 1963 Karpaty were actually created.^[9] In 2019 already the late Yuriy Dyachuk-Stavytskyi was telling, "At that time I worked as a head coach of Prykarpattia Ivano-Frankivsk.^[9] To Lviv I was invited along with Rostyslav Zaremba (at that time he headed a club of the Karpaty football fans).^[9] We were told: The club must be moved ahead [with establishment]", said Dyachuk-Stavytskyi.^[9] "For office we were given a space at vulytsia Dudaieva.^[9] On the third story there were two rooms.^[9] We found couple of chairs and a coffee table for magazines.^[9] I brought my personal typewriter as many people remember it.^[9] My friends laughed at me telling "Why do you need all this?"^[9] The same thing they said to Rostyslav as both of us came to an empty lot de facto".^[9]

"However", continued Dyachuk-Stavytskyi, "in renewed Karpaty was gathered a battle-ready team since to Lviv returned a good number of local "fosterlings" (former recruits) such as

Since Ukraine gained its independence, Karpaty have primarily participated in Ukrainian Premier League competitions. They reached 3rd place in 1997–98, their highest Ukrainian top division finish to date, and were Ukrainian Cup runners-up twice, losing both times to Dynamo Kyiv in the final.

The thirteenth season in

In August 2017 the president of the club Petro Dyminskyi while driving near Lviv ran into another car killing a younger lady. Few days later he left Ukraine on a private jet as the police started investigation. In December 2017 the district court in Kyiv gave an order to detain him and asked Interpol for assistance. In 2018 Dyminskyi appealed to Interpol to ignore the request. Dyminskyi is still at large and hiding.

It was then Oleh Smaliychuk became among main executives of the club as a vice-president. Karpaty avoided relegation in previous 2016–17 season due to administrative sanctions that were imposed against

The club poorly started its 2017–18 season losing at home to the newly promoted NK Veres Rivne that temporarily moved to Lviv (1:6) which led fans requesting players to undress their uniform and stop to disgrace the club's colors. Following the loss Navarro resigned and was replaced with Serhiy Zaytsev, but that did not help a lot. The club still struggled and after the away cup game loss against the Second League FC Prykarpattia Ivano-Frankivsk (1:2), the club's hooligans began mass riots at the stadium, brawl with the local police and stopped the bus with the returning Karpaty near Lviv. Following another home loss to FC Mariupol and remaining at the 11th place (out of 12), Zaitsev left the post and was replaced Oleh Boychyshyn. The new coach managed improve the club's table standing during the second half and the club cleared the relegation zone.

Following somewhat poor start in the 2018–19 with two home losses in four games Boychyshyn was replaced with

, but remained with Karpaty on loan until the season's end.

The 2020 crisis

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As in the previous season, the club again struggled to get out of the relegation zone in 2019–20. Although the league was scheduled to expand the following season, which would reduce the number of relegated teams, this did not help Karpaty. After 6 games the club remained 11th out of 12 and Chyzhevskyi was replaced with Roman Sanzhar. The change of coaches was not successful as the club by the midway point of the season hit bottom of the table and also suffered elimination from the domestic cup in the first round against FC Inhulets Petrove. As the club was leaving for the winter break, COVID-19 pandemic started to develop in Chinese Wuhan. The competitions resumed before introduction of quarantine and the UPL managed to finish the competition's first stage where Karpaty finished dead last. Soon after the UPL started its second stage of competitions all sports events in Ukraine were placed on halt on 18 March following the worldwide crisis. Sometime in May it was announced that Oleh Smaliychuk bought out a control package from Petro Dyminskyi who continued to hide from the law. After two months of quarantine, the UPL competitions renewed on 30 May. However, The UPL administration decided not to conduct the game Karpaty – Mariupol on 31 May 2020 as in the Lviv's team camp were found positive test results on COVID-19.^[10] FC Mariupol that was already on the way to the game was forced to turn around.^[11] On 2 June 2020 FC Karpaty Lviv released its official statement announcing that the club goes on 2 weeks self-isolation due to mass spread of the illness among players.^[12] The upcoming games with SC Dnipro-1 and Vorskla Poltava will not take place as previously scheduled.^[13] On 26 June 2020 were announced new rescheduled dates for the Karpaty's games against Mariupol and Dnipro-1.^[14] About a month later on 27 June they finally met in derby game against FC Lviv and promised to finish all their games they owed to other clubs before the new end of season on 19 July. But later Karpaty started to complain that the schedule is too tight and they won't be able to comply with the new schedule and refused to travel to any other games at all leaving on early vacations on 10 July.^[15] On 30 June 2020 the Ukrainian Premier League filed a document to the UAF Control and Disciplinary Committee informing that FC Karpaty Lviv were not able to show up for the game in Mariupol on 1 July 2020.^[16] The Mariupol–Karpaty game scheduled on 4 July will not take place.^[17] As it was the second failure to appear to the match for FC Karpaty Lviv, according to regulations the club was expelled from the championship by the UAF Control-Disciplinary Committee on 9 July 2020.^[18] The club was counted two technical defeats for two matches against FC Mariupol as 3:0 and 0:3. For all other remaining games that were due to play the club was counted -:+.^[19] On 22 July the UAF decision became final as the club did not appeal it.^[20]

On 31 July 2020 Smaliychuk announced that Karpaty would play in the Second League.^[21] In the beginning of August 2020 there surfaced information that Karpaty might even be able to play in the First League.^[22] On 14 August 2020 it was announced that the club never submitted registration for either the First or Second leagues.^[23] On 20 August 2020 it became confirmed that Karpaty will be actually playing in the Second League.^[24]

The club underwent a considerable transformation in the summer of 2021. Owned by Petro Dyminskyi between 2001 and 2020, the Karpaty ownership was claimed either partially or entirely by Oleh Smaliychuk. In 2020 the club announced its bankruptcy and was expelled from the Ukrainian Premier League, yet allowed to enter competitions in lower leagues and maintain professional status. In the autumn of 2020, veteran Karpaty Lviv players Stepan Yurchyshyn, Andriy Tlumak and others created another club by the same name that entered the national amateur competitions.^[4]

The next season the Smaliychuk's Karpaty were relegated and finally announced to be dissolved - Yurchyshyn's Karpaty were promoted to take their place in the league. During the 2020–21 Ukrainian Second League Karpaty temporarily played with a different logo.

On 14 July 2021 Smaliychuk announced that the club was dissolved and would not participate in the amateur championship after relegating from the Second League. He promised to continue the work by repaying club's old debts.^[25]

Main articles: Ukraina Stadium and Arena Lviv

FC Karpaty play their home games at the Ukraina Stadium. The stadium was built in 1963 as Druzhba ('Friendship") Stadium and renamed into Ukraina Stadium in 1992. The stadium was renovated on several occasions since, the latest one taking place in 2001. Currently the arena has a capacity of 29,004 spectators.

The stadium was also the venue hosting the final match of the first Ukrainian Premier League season in 1992, in which Tavriya Simferopol defeated Dynamo Kyiv.

It has also been one of the venues for Ukraine national football team matches, the most recent being a 1–0 win over Belarus on 6 September 2008 during 2010 FIFA World Cup qualifying.

Karpaty-3 was a second reserve team of a

In 2001 due to the merger between FC Karpaty Lviv and FC Lviv, Karpaty preserved the place of FC Lviv in the First League and transformed the former FC Lviv into the new Karpaty-2. The other Karpaty-2 Lviv that competed in the Second League was renamed to Karpaty-3.

In 2003 Karpaty-3 Lviv was renamed into Karpaty-Halychyna Lviv, coincidentally FC Halychyna Drohobych relegated that year from the professional ranks. In 2004 Karpaty-Halychyna Lviv was taken out of competitions due to relegation of its senior squad from the Ukrainian Premier League. Since then, the team was not revived.

Season	Div.	Pos.	Pl.	W	D	L	GS	GA	P	Domestic Cup[26]	Europe		Notes
2001–02	3rd "A"	9	36	14	11	11	38	31	53
2002–03	3rd "A"	10	28	8	8	12	24	33	32
2003–04	3rd "A"	14	30	7	7	16	22	36	28				as Halychyna-Karpaty[27] Relegated

Karpaty have own women team which they field since 2018. Due to the club reorganization in 2020–21 and the 2022 Russian aggression the team ceased its participation at national level. In 2023 Karpaty provided support for another team from Busk, Nadbuzhia.

Karpaty team of masters has been fielding its reserve team starting from 1971 when it was promoted to the Soviet Vysshaya Liga (

Since 2006 FC Karpaty has been fielding its junior teams in Ukrainian competitions for reserves including under-21 and under-19.

• Soviet Top League reserves
  • Third (2): 1972, 1976

• Soviet First League reserves
  • Third: 1978, 1979

• Ukrainian Premier League U–21
  • Winners (1): 2009–10
  • Third (1): 2016–17

• Ukrainian Premier League U–19
  • Third (4): 2013–14, 2014–15, 2017–18, 2018–19

In 2020 the former SDYuShOR Karpaty were reorganized into a community organization DYuFSh Karpaty owned by the city of Lviv.^[28]

Since the club has been named after the Carpathian Mountains, the image of the forest and mountains has been present on team's logo for many years. However, the logo has since been updated, inspired by coat of arms of Lviv with a segment of a fortress and lion shown on the new crest. The club's nickname 'The Green Lions' also originated from their new logo.

The club also has a ceremonial logo, however, it is very rarely used, mostly during TV broadcasts or video packages.

Traditionally the club colours have been white and green. Throughout the club's history its kit has always been designed in green and white colours; other colours are almost never used and are usually highly criticized by fans.

Green is considered to be the dominant of the two in club nicknames like "Green Lions" and "Green-Whites". For some time black was also used and was even displayed on one of the club's former logos.

Karpaty's biggest rivals today are Volyn Lutsk and FC Lviv. The match against FC Volyn Lutsk is called the Galician-Volhynian rivalry (derby) which is the main football event in western Ukraine. Derby with FC Lviv has shorter history (six matches by the end of 2019)

Karpaty became the longest surviving city's professional football club and over the years participated in Lviv city derbies with

In the beginning of the 1990s a rivalry with

Karpaty Lviv is among the most popular clubs in Ukraine and according to social polls of local polling organizations such as

.

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
1970–71	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	First round	FC Steaua București	0–1	3–3	3–4
1993–94	UEFA Cup Winners' Cup	Qualifying round	Shelbourne F.C.	1–0	1–3	2–3
1999–00	UEFA Cup	First Round	Helsingborgs IF	1–1 (a.e.t.)	1–1	2–2 (2–4 p)
2010–11	UEFA Europa League	Second Qualifying Round	KR Reykjavík	3–2	3–0	6–2
		Third Qualifying Round	FC Zestaponi	1–0	1–0	2–0
		Playoff Round	Galatasaray S.K.	1–1	2–2	3–3 (a)
		Group Stage (Group J)	Paris Saint-Germain F.C.	1–1	0–2	4th
			Sevilla FC	0–1	0–4
			Borussia Dortmund	3–4	0–3
2011–12	UEFA Europa League	Third Qualifying Round	St Patrick's Athletic F.C.	2–0	3–1	5–1
		Playoff Round	PAOK FC	1–1	0–2	1–3

UEFA club coefficient ranking

As of 06.06.2016 (no ranking for 2017), Source: [1]

Rank	Team	Points
158	FK Jablonec	10.585
159	FC Sheriff Tiraspol	10.575
160	FC Karpaty Lviv	10.476
161	Apollon Limassol FC	10.435
162	Aalborg BK	10.220

• Soviet Cup
  • Winners (1): 1969
• Soviet First League
  • Winners (2): 1970, 1979
• Soviet Second League
  • Winners (1): 1991 (Zone West)

• Ukrainian Cup
  • Runners-up (2): 1992–93, 1998–99
• Ukrainian First League
  • Runners-up (2): 2004–05, 2023–24

• Copa del Sol
  • Winners (1): 2011

As of 23 January 2025^[38][39]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 1 GK  UKR Yakiv Kinareykin 3 DF  UKR Volodymyr Adamyuk 4 DF  MDA Vladislav Baboglo 5 DF  UKR Andriy Buleza 7 MF  UKR Yevhen Pidlepenets 8 MF  UKR Ambrosiy Chachua 9 FW  BRA Fabiano 10 FW  BRA Igor Neves 11 DF  UKR Denys Miroshnichenko (captain) 14 FW  UKR Illya Kvasnytsya (on loan from Rukh Lviv) 17 MF  UKR Orest Kuzyk 18 MF  UKR Vladyslav Klymenko 20 MF  UKR Oleh Ocheretko (on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk) 21 MF  ARG Patricio Tanda (on loan from Racing Club) 22 DF  UKR Bohdan Veklyak 23 MF  ESP Pablo Álvarez

No. Pos. Nation Player 26 MF  UKR Yan Kostenko 28 DF  UKR Pavlo Polehenko 31 GK  UKR Oleksandr Ilyushchenkov 33 MF  UKR Artur Shakh 35 GK  UKR Oleksandr Kemkin 37 MF  BRA Bruninho (on loan from Atlético Mineiro) 38 FW  UKR Oleksandr Fetko 41 GK  UKR Nazar Domchak 44 MF  UKR Taras Sakiv 47 DF  BRA Jean Pedroso (on loan from Coritiba) 55 DF  UKR Tymur Stetskov 71 MF  UKR Oleh Fedor (on loan from Rukh Lviv) 77 DF  UKR Oleksiy Sych 95 FW  UKR Ihor Krasnopir — MF  UKR Maksym Chekh

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player — MF  UKR Kyrylo Matvyeyev (at Nyva Buzova until 31 December 2024) — MF  UKR Maksym Melnychenko (at Polissya Zhytomyr until 30 June 2025)

No. Pos. Nation Player — MF  BRA Stênio (at América-MG until 31 December 2025) — FW  UKR Vadym Sydun (at Nyva Ternopil until 30 June 2025)

• 1998–1999: Yaroslav Hrytsyuk^[42]
• 1999–2001: Leonid Tkachuk
• 2001–2020: Petro Dyminskyi
• 2020–2021: Oleh Smaliychuk

League	Years	Last	Promotions	Relegations
Top	8	1980	1 time to Europe	2 (1980)
First	11	1981	2 (1979)	1 (1981)
Second	3	1991	never	never
22 years of professional football in Soviet Union since 1963
Premier	27	2019–20	4 times to Europe	2 (2019–20)
First	3	2022–23	1 ( 2005–06 )	never
Second	1	2021–22	1 (2021–22)	never
31 years of professional football in Ukraine since 1992

• Roman Tolochko (2007 – 2013)
• Andriy Kuptsov (2013 – 2015)
• Andriy Tlumak (2016)
• Oleksandr Chyzhevskyi (2016 – 2019)

• Ernest Yust, Soviet Cup, Class A (pervaya gruppa) winner, Soviet Top League fourth place
• Ishtvan Sekech, Soviet First League winner
• Stepan Yurchyshyn, Soviet Second League winner
• Myron Markevych, Ukrainian Top League third place

• Reserves:
  FC Karpaty Lviv Reserves and Youth Team
• EUROFANZ
• Ukraina Lwów
• FC Karpaty Halych

Wikimedia Commons has media related to FC Karpaty Lviv.

• Official website
• Fan site
• FC Karpaty, Lviv in international and national competitions. eu-football.info
• Readmission of FC Karpaty Lviv to professional football (Oleksandr Shevchenko is a president of Lviv Oblast Association of Football whom Smaliychuk accused in lack of support for Karpaty)
  • Oleksandr Shevchenko, "the Smaliychuk's representatives were explaining that the only way to save Karpaty is to register the club from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast in Lviv (Александр Шевченко: Представители Смалийчука объясняли, что единственный путь спасения Карпат — это зарегистрировать клуб из Ивано-Франковской области во Львове). Sport Arena. 25 August 2020.;
  • Oleksandr Shevchenko, "In situation with "Karpaty" it disturbs me whether or not it is another oligarchs' game, part of which is Smaliychuk (Александр Шевченко: В ситуации с Карпатами меня смущает, не очередная ли это игра олигархов, частью которой и является Смалийчук?). Sport Arena. 25 August 2020.
• Artur Malkin. Oleh Luzhny, "Co-owner of Karpaty Smaliychuk is psychically unbalanced person" (Олег Лужний: "Співвласник "Карпат" Смалійчук – психічно неврівноважена людина"). Footboom. 26 August 2020.
  • Luzhny, "I can argue that Smaliychuk does not appear as an owner of Karpaty, because someone stands behind him" (Лужный: "Могу поспорить: Смалийчук не является совладельцем Карпат, за ним кто-то стоит"). Sport Arena. 26 August 2020.
• Myron Markevych, "Beside Mykhailiv, I know at least two-three other people who wanted to buy Karpaty" (Мирон Маркевич: "Окрім Михайліва, знаю ще двох-трьох людей, які хотіли купити "Карпати"). Footboom. 26 August 2020.
• We are starting to get ready for massive renovation. "Karpaty" will live ("Починаємо готуватись до масштабного оновлення. "Карпати" будуть жити"). FC Karpaty Lviv. 22 August 2020.
• Artem Fedetskyi, "In Karpaty they want that debts were left on the new emblem. It is just another Smaliychuk's scheme (Артем Федецкий: «В «Карпатах» хотят, чтобы долги остались на новой эмблеме. Это еще одна авантюра Смалийчука»). Tribuna.com. 12 August 2020.