History overview
The club was founded in 1927 as an amateur team, part of Dinamo, a nation-wide Soviet sport society. This society later became officially funded and patronized by the NKVD (a KGB predecessor), and later by the interior ministry (MVD). In the 1950s–1980s, team players were even officially ranked as police officers. However, thousands of ordinary Soviet citizens paid symbolic membership fees for the "sport society".
During the Soviet era, the club was one of the main rivals, and oftentimes the only rival, to the football clubs from Moscow. Its ability to challenge the dominance of the Moscow clubs in Soviet soccer, and frequently defeat them to win the Soviet championship, was a matter of national pride for Ukraine. Leaders of the Ukrainian SSR unofficially regarded the club as their national team and provided it with generous support. Thus, Dinamo became a de-facto professional team of international importance.
After the Soviet Union's collapse, the club, now using the Ukrainian name Dynamo Kyiv, became a member of the new football league of Ukraine. Dynamo's status as the country's principal club did not alter as they went on to dominate domestic cups. This dominance has recently been challenged by FC Shakhtar Donetsk from the eastern region of Donbass, which won the national championship in 2002 and again in 2005, leaving Dynamo with a second place.
Since 1993, the team has been owned by Hryhoriy Surkis, a Ukrainian businessmen and oligarch, one of the richest tycoons in Eastern Europe (with interests in electricity, oil trade, and allegedly in organized crime). The Ukrainian opposition has accused the government of setting too low a price and other irregularities during the privatization of the club. Surkis is closely linked to former President Leonid Kuchma, being a member of the so-called "Kiev holding", or "Dynamo group", an influential business and political clan, formally organized as the SDPU(o) political party. The team's symbols and players, formerly including Andriy Shevchenko, have been used in political advertisements for pro-Kuchma politicians in recent elections.
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The "Death Match"
Poster of the return match
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Poster of the return match
The story is often told of how the Dinamo team, playing as "Start, City of Kyiv All-Stars", was shot in the summer of 1942 for defeating an All-Star team from the German armed forces by 5 goals to 1. The actual story, as recounted by Y. Kuznetsov ([1]), is considerably more complex. After the Nazi occupation of Ukraine began, the Dinamo team found employment in the city's Bakery No. 3, and played football on wasteland, where they were spotted by Germans and invited to play against an army team as "Start". "Start" comprised eight players from Dinamo, Nikolai Trusevich, Mikhail Sviridovskiy, Nikolai Korotkykh, Aleksey Klimenko, Fedor Tyutchev, Mikhail Putistin, Ivan Kuzmenko, Makar Goncharenko and three players from Lokomotiv Kyiv, Vladimir Balakin, Vasiliy Sukharev, and Mikhail Melnik. In July and August 1942 "Start" played a series of matches against German and allied sides. On July 12 a German army team was defeated. A stronger army team was selected for the next match on July 17, which "Start" defeated 6-0. On July 19 "Start" defeated the Hungarian team MSG Wal by 5-1. The Hungarians proposed a return match, held on July 26, but were defeated by 3-2.
At this stage it appeared that "Start" were ready to be beaten, and a match was announced for August 6 against a "most powerful" "undefeated" German Luftwaffe Flakelf team, but despite the game being talked up by the newspapers, they failed to report the 5-1 result. On August 9 "Start" played a "friendly" against Flakelf and again defeated them. The team defeated Rukh 8-0 on August 16, and after this the players were arrested by the Gestapo, tortured – Nikolai Korotkykh dying under torture – and sent to the nearby labour camp at Siretz. In February 1943, following an attack by anti-German partisans, one-third of the prisoners at Siretz were killed in reprisal, including Ivan Kuzmenko, Aleksey Klimenko, and the goalkeeper Nikolai Trusevich. Three of the other players, Makar Goncharenko, Fedor Tyutchev and Mikhail Sviridovskiy, who were in a work squad in the city that day, escaped and hid in the city until it was liberated