FC Shakhtar Donetsk is one of two Ukrainian clubs, the other being Dynamo Kyiv, who have won a major UEFA competition.

[3] Following the winter break of the 2016–17 season the club then moved again to the Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv (250 kilometres (160 mi) to the northwest of Donetsk) early in 2017.

The club has a meaningful association with the Donets Basin underground coal-mining using vertical mining shafts, called Schacht in German.

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.

[7] The team returned to Stalino on 28 May and the same day Gololobov in interview to newspaper "Stalinskiy rabochiy" told that "... the game in Kazan with local "Dynamo" was witnessed by 3,000 spectators.

During the war championship of 1941, which was interrupted unexpectedly, the club defeated Soviet champions Dynamo Moscow and after about ten games were placed in fifth in the league.

In the last game of that championship, played on 24 June, two days after the start of the Great Patriotic War,[8] which they lost at home to Traktor Stalingrad.

Despite the latest achievement, Shakhtar was relegated at the end of the 1952 season and as part of the re-organization of the team, former player Aleksandr Ponomarev became the head coach of the club.

Despite the departure of the team's leader midfielder Anatoliy Konkov, in 1975, Shakhtar under management of former player Vladimir Salkov, earned second place in the USSR Championship and received the right to represent the Soviet Union in European competition.

[12] In 1979, the team finished second in the league campaign and its captain—striker Vitaliy Starukhin—became the top scorer in the USSR Championship with 26 goals scored, also being named Soviet Footballer of the Year.

Important players at the time were defenders Serhiy Popov and Mykhaylo Starostyak, goalkeeper Dmytro Shutkov, striker Oleh Matvyeyev (who was top scorer of the Premier League in the 1996–97 season), and midfielders Hennadiy Orbu, Valeriy Kryventsov and Ihor Petrov.

In 2000, Andriy Vorobey was named Ukrainian Footballer of the Year by Komanda, the first Shakhtar player in independent Ukraine to do so, and became the top scorer in the 2000–01 Vyshcha Liha.

That year, Shakhtar competed in the UEFA Champions League for the first time, drawn in a group with Lazio, Arsenal and Sparta Prague.

The club won its first ever Ukrainian Premier League title in the 2001–02 season under coach Nevio Scala, winning by a single point over Dynamo Kyiv.

[20][21][22][23][24][25] They won their second Premier League title in the 2004–05 season, but lost to Dynamo Kyiv in the inaugural Ukrainian Super Cup tournament in 2004.

[35] The successful season did not go unnoticed by the experts, and in 2011, the IFFHS gave Shakhtar a special award for making the biggest progress of the decade among football clubs.

[38] Shakhtar player Yevhen Seleznyov topped the goal scoring charts in the league, with 14 goals, midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan was named Armenian Footballer of the Year, and manager Mircea Lucescu was named 2012 Romania Coach of the Year, receiving the award for the third time.

Due to the war in Donbas, Shakhtar had to temporarily move and play its games in Arena Lviv,[50] resulting in very low attendance.

[51] As an anti-war protest, the players of Shakhtar refused the initiative to wear the "Glory to the Ukrainian Army" shirts.

[55] While the club itself moved to a Ukraine-controlled zone, a few prominent Shakhtar players remained in the Donetsk People's Republic and supported the unrecognised state.

Among them were former defender Viktor Zvyahintsev, former goalkeeper Yuriy Dehteryov, former Shakhtar and Ukraine national football team captain Ihor Petrov, and the club's first press officer Vyacheslav Sharafutdinov.

[58] In the middle of the season, Alex Teixeira moved to Chinese club Jiangsu Suning for a fee of €50 million,[59] breaking both the Asian and Ukrainian[60] transfer record.

After the 2015–16 season, long-time manager Mircea Lucescu moved on to Zenit Saint Petersburg; he was replaced by the Portuguese Paulo Fonseca, previously of Braga.

[64] Until 2009 Shakhtar had been playing most of its games at the RSC Olimpiyskyi stadium which is a property of administration of Donetsk Oblast and the Serhiy Bubka College of Olympic Reserve.

The stadium received some major renovations, including the installation of bench seats in 2000 when Shakhtar made it to the Champions League Group Stage.

[66][67] Following the winter break of the 2016–17 season the club moved to the Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv (250 kilometers to the northwest of Donetsk).

Due to the war conditions in the eastern Ukraine, Shakhtar temporary venue for its home matches has changed several times, while it was announced that the team will use training facilities in Kyiv.

In 1989, an artist, Viktor Savilov, on the event of the club restructuring offered a draft variant of a logo with elements of the ball and a pitch.

As of 21 May 2016[88] Shakhtar Donetsk has participated in European competition since 1976, playing its first game against Berliner FC Dynamo in the UEFA Cup.

Shakhtar Donetsk played against Arsenal, Lazio and Sparta Prague upon qualifying for the group stage for the first time in 2000–01.