Arsenal Kyiv

Football Club Arsenal Kyiv (Ukrainian: Футбо́льний Клуб Арсена́л–Київ) is a Ukrainian football club based in Kyiv. The club claims to be a successor of Kyiv Arsenal factory team Arsenal which traces its history back to 1925. The original factory team used to compete in the Soviet Second League, but was relegated in 1964 and supposedly continued to play in Kyiv city competitions.

The football club of Ukrainian post-Soviet period was created in 1993 and brought to Kyiv from Boryspil by a geological company Geoton which was one of main sponsors of Football Federation of Ukraine and Ukraine national football team in the beginning. In 1995–2001 through a merger, the club was reconstituted by the Ministry of Defense as a government enterprise. During that period (1995–2001) it competed in the Ukrainian Top League under CSKA Kyiv brand as its senior (main) squad, while the original army squad continued to compete in lower leagues. In 1995 it was relocated to Kyiv playing at CSK ZSU Stadium and carried such names CSKA-Borysfen and CSKA, while the original FC CSKA Kyiv competing in lower leagues changed its name to CSKA-2 as its reserve squad. Due to difficulty of financing, the ownership of senior squad was transferred to the Kyiv city authorities during the winter break of 2001–02 as part of Oleksandr Omelchenko political project and the newly acquired squad was renamed as Arsenal in memory of the factory team.

Between 2002 and 2008, Arsenal was a municipal club of Kyiv city and played its games at the Olympiyskiy National Sports Complex. Later when the club was sold to the Ukrainian politician Vadym Rabinovych who promised to build own stadium for the club within the Kyiv city limits, but instead came up with a campaign to revive the history of another Arsenal Kyiv, a f