SC Dnipro-1

SC Dnipro 1 is a professional Ukrainian football team from Dnipro. While not officially a successor of FC Dnipro, SC Dnipro-1 took over all of the infrastructure of the former club including its academy. SC Dnipro-1 is competing in the Ukrainian Premier League, having been promoted from the First League in 2019.

History

The club owners are Maksym Bereza[a] and Hennadiy Polonskyi. The club adopted an emblem similar to the Police Special Patrol Detachment Dnipro-1 that used to be led by Yuriy Bereza which represents the Lisovskyi tryzub.

The Professional Football League of Ukraine reviewed the matter of admitting the club SC Dnipro-1 on 21 June 2017. The club had not been participating in championship among amateurs which is required by regulation. Nonetheless, the delegates at the PFL conference with 25 votes "for" decided to admit the club to PFL. Out of fairness, the recently revived NK Veres Rivne participating in the 2017–18 Ukrainian Premier League also did not participate in amateur competition before being readmitted to professionals. Before voting on the issue the club's honorary president Yuriy Bereza gave a speech stating that the club has own sports school with 300 younger athletes, has agreements with stadiums Meteor and Dnipro, also claimed that the closest assistant of Bereza is Ukrainian international footballer Roman Zozulya who supposedly was a main initiator in creation of the club. Bereza also assured the audience that the club has a support of the Dnipro-1 Regiment, local ultras, and the city's community in general. Some Ukrainian news media (such as UNIAN) announced that the club is a successor of FC Dnipro.

On 6 July 2017, it was announced that SC Dnipro-1 would also adopt the FC Dnipro football school. The same day SC Dnipro-1 announced its squad for the upcoming 2017–18 Ukrainian Second League season, having a number of well known footballers in Ukraine such as Yevhen Cheberyachko, Serhiy Kravchenko and many others.

Its first official game the club played on 9 July 2017 hosting FC Bukovyna Chernivtsi as part of the 2017–18 Ukrainian Cup. Its first official league game the club played next week on 15 July 2017 hosting FC Metalist 1925 Kharkiv as part of the 2017–18 Ukrainian Second League. That season Dnipro-1 became the second club in history of the Ukrainian Cup that reached semifinals while competing at the third tier and also earned promotion by placing the first place in its group.

As champion of the 2018–19 Ukrainian First League Dnipro-1 promoted to the Ukrainian Premier League in 2019.

Critical perception: SC Dnipro-1 vs FC Dnipro

In 2018 FC Dnipro was forced into bankruptcy by FIFA due to multiple legal claims for failing to pay its promised monetary compensation to players and managers.

Among members of the former football club Dnipro that never got paid, there are Egídio Pereira Júnior, Danilo Sousa Campos, manager Juande Ramos and his coaching staff, Jaba Kankava, Vitaliy Mandzyuk, and others.

On 22 February 2021, FIFA dismissed the claim of Jaba 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.

Other former players perceive creation of SC Dnipro-1 as a type of scheme (ponzi scheme).

Honours

Ukrainian Cup

Semifinals (2): 2017–18, 2018–19

Ukrainian First League

Winners (1): 2018–19

Ukrainian Second League

Runners-up (1): 2017–18

Reserves

In 2019 the club also fielded its reserve team in amateur competitions SC Dnipro-1-Borysfen that previously (in 2018–19) played at the Youth League and PFL under-19 competitions. The team played in the under-19 competitions along with SC Dnipro-1 under-19 team which won the competitions.

Managers

2017 – 2020 Dmytro Mykhailenko

2020 – present Igor Jovićević