When Slovak referee Lubos Michel first came to Donetsk in 1995 to take charge of a soccer game, he told himself he’d never come back.
“The city was dead, scary, without hotels and the stadium was old,” recalled Michel, a former top-level referee, in a recent interview.
Seventeen years later he not only lives in the city, but works promoting one of its most precious jewels – the Shakhtar Donetsk soccer club. “Donetsk has changed a lot in 17 years,” said Michel, who heads Shakhtar’s Department of International Competitions.
Ukrainian soccer has also undergone a seismic shift. While in the 1990s Dynamo Kyiv was the team everyone in Europe knew and feared, Shakhtar was widely seen as a toy in the hands of oligarchs.
Today, however, Shakhtar Donetsk is developing a growing reputation for skilful play and good results. In 2009, Shakhtar won the Union of European Football Associations Cup, Europe soccer’s second biggest prize.
Last season, the Miners had an outstanding run in Europe’s premier club competition, the Champions League, only losing in the quarterfinals to eventual winner Barcelona.
It has been a long path to success. But Shakhtar has entered a purple patch in recent years under the presidency of Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man. On Oct. 11, Akhmetov celebrated 15 years at the helm.
He took the reins in 1996 after club president Aleksandr Bragin had been blown up in the stadium, and began to develop the club according to the European model, investing heavily, and not only in the team.
Backroom staff – including scouts, coaches and public relations managers – were hired from England, the Netherlands, Portugal and Scotland.
The ultra-modern, 51,000-seat Donbas Arena stadium and surrounding park was completed in 2009 at a cost of $400 million. New training facilities and a youth academy system were put in place.
“It’s the highly developed infrastructure that sets Shakhtar apart from other Ukrainian clubs,” Michel said. “In order to achieve success in football nowadays, you have to pick the best specialists, regardless of passport… People come to Shakhtar who have had a taste of top-level football from the inside; they have experience in dealing with club matters in the finest details.”
The results have been spectacular: Shakhtar has won six Ukrainian championships in the past 10 years, overseen by Romanian coach Mircea Lucescu, who was hired in 2004.
Lucescu has brought in a host of top players, in particular from Brazil. He has blended these players in with local talent.
“Akhmetov has been brilliant as an owner,” said Jonathan Wilson, a British soccer historian and journalist who has written extensively on Eastern Europe.
“He has been patient, even when Shakhtar hasn’t had the success in the Champions League that he might have liked.”
The highly developed infrastructure that sets Shakhtar apart from other Ukrainian clubs.
– Lubos Michel, Slovak referee
Wilson added that the choice of players has been wise – mostly either Brazilians or locals.
The focus on Brazilians has created a community in Donetsk that helps to attract other talented players from South America looking to move to Europe.
Dynamo, meanwhile, failed to kick on from their successes in the 1990s.
The club had at first been able to take advantage of its Soviet legacy, inheriting the infrastructure and reputation as Ukraine’s football club.
But in the early 2000s, legendary coach Valeriy Lobanovsky died and a host of top players left.
Coaches changed from year to year, breeding instability. When the teams met in the UEFA cup semifinals in 2009, Shakhtar won 3-2 over two matches. The balance of power had shifted in a way visible to all in Europe.
“When Rinat Akhmetov became club president 15 years ago, people laughed even about his intention to reach European competition,” Michel said. “They had even greater doubts when he said that Shakhtar wanted to compete with Dynamo as equals.”
“Five years ago in Europe, Shakhtar was seen as a one-off, with some crazy oligarch spending millions on Brazilians. But people now take them more seriously,” Wilson said.
Akhmetov has stated that he wants Shakhtar to win the Champions League, an ambitious aim given the competition from established teams such as Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea.
A number of obstacles stand in the club’s way, mostly connected with the relative poverty of Ukraine compared with Western Europe.
“Last season, Shakhtar earned $21 million from TV rights for games.
But it turned out that in qualifying for the quarterfinals, the club earned less than a German team that had not even progressed from the qualifying group,” Michel said.
The club will struggle to attract the top players, as it continues to be viewed as a club that offers players a stepping stone into the bigger European leagues.
Akhmetov has been brilliant as an owner. He has been patient, even when Shakhtar hasn’t had the success in the Champions League that he might have liked.
– Jonathan Wilson, a British soccer historian and journalist
The financial issues can, to an extent, be balanced by Akhmetov’s deep pockets – he’s worth $23.6 billion, according to Kyiv Post’s December 2010 rich list.
That alone should keep Shakhtar at the top of Ukrainian football for some time to come.
But the predominance of two men at Shakhtar – Akhmetov and Lucescu – presents its own problems.
If either walks away for any reason, the project would suffer a huge blow.
Another major issue for Shakhtar is the lack of competition in the Ukrainian Premier League, which prevents the players from gaining experience of playing in tough games.
“Dynamo and Shakhtar play four or five tough games in a season. In the rest, the team dominates, easily scores a couple of goals, then relaxes for the rest of the match,” Michel said.
He hopes that other clubs, most of which are also owned by tycoons, would follow Shakhtar’s path and build top-notch infrastructure, as well as teams to rival the best that Dynamo Kyiv ever produced.
“[Dynamo] was the best club in the post-Soviet space. I hope there will be more clubs like it, such as Metallist Kharkiv and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, which are developing, building stadiums, attracting supporters. Then football in the country will also be raised,” he said.
Kyiv Post editors Kostya Dovgan and James Marson can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]
