Ukrainian Cup


The Ukrainian Cup is an association football national knockout cup competition run by the Ukrainian Association of Football. The competition is conducted almost exclusively among professional clubs. Since the 2003–04 season, the Cup winner qualifies to play the Ukrainian Premier League winner for the Ukrainian Super Cup.

Current format and eligibility criteria

2025–26 season

The competition includes all professional first teams from the Premier League, First League, Second League as well as 21 amateur teams including 5 best performers from the previous year's Amateur Cup and 16 from regional associations.

Rounds schedule

Qualification

For the competition are eligible first teams of all Ukrainian professional clubs including the top tier, the Premier League, and lower tiers from the Professional Football League, the First League and the Second League. No reserve teams or second teams may enter the competition. An exception may be granted by the Ukrainian Association of Football if such team won the Ukrainian Amateur Cup or other qualification tournaments.
Beside professional clubs, to the competition is also invited both finalists of the Ukrainian Amateur Cup from the preceding season. If one or both finalists obtained professional status, then one or more better performers of the amateur competition are invited, such as semifinalists or others.
The number of participants fluctuates from season to season around 50-70. This includes 30+ teams from the top two tiers, the Premier and the First leagues and about the same amount or less from the Second league and/or amateur participants. During the existence of the Ukrainian Second League Cup in 1999-2001, the number of participants was around 30. Following the 2014 Russian military aggression, the number of participants has sunk notably to around 50.

Format: draw and team entry

The format of this competition consists of two phases: a qualification phase with 2-3 rounds followed by the competition proper when all Premier League clubs enter the competition.
The competition features a staggered entrance format where early rounds of the competition include matches between lower league competitions with teams of higher league competitions entering later. Often times the very first qualification round involves matches between the amateur teams and either the newly admitted professional clubs or clubs that struggled in prior season. After that in the next couple of qualification rounds enter clubs of the Second League and First League.
Beside the initial draw, all the draws are conducted the next day after all the matches of the round is played. The draw for each round may be "blind" or teams may be grouped as "seeded" and "unseeded".
Often the Ukrainian Association of Football organizes the draw in qualification phase by geographic principles, so to accommodate "smaller" clubs by reducing their travel time.

Timeframe and the final

The competition usually starts in the early August or the second half of July. It takes an extensive break for winter months starting in November and resumes no early than the second half of March or early April. This break is driven by the climate situation.
The final takes place in the mid-May, often times, or by the end of May, normally.
Typically, the final used to take place at the Olimpiyskiy National Sports Complex in Kyiv, the country's capital, however due reconstruction of the stadium to prepare to the UEFA Euro 2012, the final had been played at other venues temporarily. After that this tradition has ceased.

Past variations of the format

Past variations of the competition involved a home-away type of elimination, but the Ukrainian Cup has since changed to a single game per round format. In recent years, a conditional replay game was introduced to avoid penalty shootouts. Cup draws may be conducted for two consecutive rounds, but usually occur before each following round. The lower division teams are usually awarded the home-field advantage.
Until the big football reform of 1996, the competition featured winners of regional football cup competitions from all oblasts as well as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Following the 1996 reform, the qualification of the regional football cup competition winners was discontinued.
Between 1999 and 2001, additional competition existed, serving as a qualification for the Ukrainian Cup. It was known as the Ukrainian Second League Cup. It was created in order to make the Ukrainian Cup more competitive, involving participation of only the strongest teams. Following the discontinuation of the competition, the participation of the second teams in the Ukrainian Cup became restricted.

Trophy

There were at least 4 trophies, 2 during the Soviet period and 2 following the fall of the Soviet Union.
The newest trophy was introduced right before the start of the 2025–26 Ukrainian Cup competition, featuring the ceremonial mace "Bulava".

History

Ukrainian Cup competitions have been conducted since at least 1936. The first of season in 1936 was officially known as Spring Championship, the decision about which was adopted by the All-Ukrainian football Section. Initially called also as the Spring Championship, sometime during the 1937 season the tournament was renamed by mass media as the Cup of the Ukrainian SSR. The official change was adopted by the Republican Football Conference only in April 1938. To commemorate the event, in 1979 the Soviet Ministry of Communication released an envelope with depiction of the trophy. The streamer on top of a picture
reads in Russian language "The first Cup of Ukraine in football", while the same thing is written at the picture's footer in Ukrainian language.
In 1944 as compensation for the canceled republican championship there was conducted next tournament in September. The decision to conduct the tournament was adopted on 6 September 1944 by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. The tournament was also known as Ukrainian Cup or Ukrainian Bowl. After World War II, subsequent editions of the national Cup were downgraded to a republican cup competition that was limited to lower league clubs and teams participating in the KFK competitions. The timeframe of the tournament also shifted from spring time to fall. Already in 1948 FC Lokomotyv Kharkiv as one of the Soviet Top League clubs from Ukraine chose not to participate in the Ukrainian Cup competition. In 1959 the tournament was cancelled completely and replaced with Football Cup among collective of physical culture.
In the 1970s, the Ukrainian Cup competitions were revived and conducted parallel to Ukrainian Amateur Cup for several seasons. In second half of 1970, the tournament was discontinued once again until 1990.
The first Cup competition in independent Ukraine had an unlikely winner, similar to the championship of 1992. The main contender, Dynamo Kyiv, settled for a draw in its first game at home against a team that was an amateur club in Soviet times, Skala Stryi. In the following quarter-finals round, the team faced defeat by Torpedo Zaporizhia. Eventually that competition was won by Chornomorets Odesa.
In 2008, the Football Federation of Ukraine signed a contract with the company Datagroup, naming the company as the main sponsor of the tournament for the next four years. Datagroup introduced its new version of the cup trophy, the first winner of which became Shakhtar Donetsk. In 2010, there was an attempt to launch an independent website for the competition, which was active for only a couple of months.

Venues

The Ukrainian Cup finals are played most often at the main countries association football venue, Olympiyskiy National Sports Complex. Since 2008 and establishing of the Ukrainian Premier League, the final games started to be conducted at alternative stadiums among which most often was used the Metalist Oblast Sports Complex and the Dnipro Arena.
Source:

Top scorers of finals

Performances

Achievements of clubs since 1992
TeamWinnersWinning yearsRunners-upRunners yearsFinals
Shakhtar Donetsk151995, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2024, 202562003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2014, 201521
Dynamo Kyiv131993, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2014, 2015, 2020, 202162002, 2008, 2011, 2017, 2018, 202519
Chornomorets Odesa21992, 1994120133
Vorskla Poltava1200922020, 20243
Tavriya Simferopol12010119942
Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk–—31995, 1997, 20043
Karpaty Lviv–—21993, 19992
CSKA Kyiv–—21998, 20012
Metalurh Donetsk–—22010, 20122
Zorya Luhansk–—22016, 20212
Metalist Kharkiv–—119921
Nyva Vinnytsia–—119961
Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih–—120001
Metalurh Zaporizhya–—120061
Inhulets Petrove–—120191

  • Note: Defunct teams marked in Italics.