Football Club Shakhtar Donetsk () is a Ukrainian professional football club that was based in the city of Donetsk until 2014 when, due to the War in Donbas, the club was forced to move to Lviv, and played matches in Lviv (2014–2016) and in Kharkiv (2017–2020) whilst having its office headquarters and training facilities in Kyiv. Since the beginning of the 2023–24 season, Shakhtar has played home matches once again at Arena Lviv.
Shakhtar has appeared in several European competitions and is often a participant in the UEFA Champions League. The club became the first club in independent Ukraine to win the UEFA Cup in 2009, the last year before the competition was revamped as the Europa League. FC Shakhtar Donetsk is one of two Ukrainian clubs, the other being Dynamo Kyiv, who have won a major UEFA competition.
The club formerly played its home matches in Donetsk at the newly built Donbas Arena, however due to the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, the team were forced to relocate to the west in Arena Lviv in the interim. Following the winter break of the 2016–17 season the club then moved again to the Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv ( to the northwest of Donetsk) early in 2017. In May–July 2020 Shakhtar played home matches at NSC Olimpiyskyi in Kyiv. and is particularly favoured in the eastern Donbas region.
The club draws its history from the very start of the Soviet football league competitions and is one of the oldest clubs in Ukraine. The club was a member of the Soviet Voluntary Sports Society of Shakhtyor, having connections with other Soviet teams from Karaganda (Kazakhstan), Soligorsk (Belarus), among others. In the late Soviet period, Shakhtar was considered a tough mid-table club of the Soviet Top League and a cup competition specialist after winning the Soviet Cup two years in a row in 1961 and 1962.
History
The club's names and etymology
The team has played under the following names: Stakhanovets (1936–46), Shakhtyor (Shakhtar) (1946–92), and FC Shakhtar (1992–present).
The club has a meaningful association with the Donets Basin underground coal-mining using vertical mining shafts, called Schacht in German. This was taken over into Cyrillic Шахтн, end re-transcribed into Latin letters as, for example, shakt in English use. As part of the so-called Stalin industrialisation and Stakhanovite movement, in 1936 the local football teams of Dynamo sports societies of Horlivka and Stalino (today Donetsk) established a joint team that represented the mining volunteer sports society Stakhanovets (later Shakhter). The team was transferred from the sports society for the NKVD to a trade union "volunteered sports society" (DSO).
Following the World War II, the DSO Stakhanovets changed its name to DSO Shakhter which in the Ukrainian SSR had its local corresponding nomenclature as DSS Shakhtar. The word "Shakhter" or "Shakhtar" means a coal miner working at a sub-surface mine, shafted mine, shakhta is a derivative of shaft.
During the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1989–1992), the Donetsk club was reorganized and commercialized as a professional football team. It also made its Ukrainian name as its only name, Шахтар Донецьк, with Shakhtar Donetsk in English, Schachtar Donezk in German and Szachtar Donieck in Polish, the latter two being languages of countries that hosted international "home" games for the club due to the situation since 2014.
Early years – first two decades
thumb|The team in 1937.
The Shakhtar club was originally formed on a decision of the All-Union Council on Physical Culture and Sports of 3 April 1936. It was initially named Stakhanovets, meaning "the participant of Stakhanovite movement", which derived from Aleksei Stakhanov, a coal-miner in the Donbas and propaganda celebrity in 1935. The first team was based upon two other local teams, the participants of the All-Ukrainian Spartakiads: Dynamo Horlivka and Dynamo Stalino. The first game was against Dynamo Odesa as part of the 1936 Cup of the Ukrainian SSR (at that time known as Ukrainian spring challenge) and took place on 12 May 1936 at Balitsky Stadium in Horlivka (the first home stadium). The team that played as Stakhonovets Horlivka lost 3–2 after scoring the first goal by Mykhailo Pashchenko,