Editing FC Dnipro (section)

===Ukrainian independence===
Just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1989 the club was transformed into a professional football club instead of the Soviet "team of masters", a process through which all Soviet teams of masters went through. The club joined the [[Football Federation of Ukraine|football federation of the native country]] and remained one of the top contenders in the newly formed [[Ukrainian Premier League]]. The team received a silver medal in 1993, as well as the bronze in 1992, 1995, 1996, 2001 and 2004. The team also reached the [[Ukrainian Cup]] finals in 1995, 1997 and 2004, losing all three to [[FC Shakhtar Donetsk|Shakhtar Donetsk]]. In the beginning of the 1990s the control of the club took over a native of [[Rivne]] [[Ihor Bakai]] with his "Respublika" corporation who earlier in the 1980s was governor of the [[SKA Karpaty Lviv]] training center, part of the [[Carpathian Military District]].<ref name=stange>[https://web.archive.org/web/20170714065501/http://football.ua/ownshirt/events/176015-vy-popaly-v-shtangu.html "Вы попали в штангу"]. football.ua (archived version). 9 September 2012</ref> Bakai who invited [[Bernd Stange]] to Dnipro became first who hired foreign manager to head the former Soviet club.<ref name=stange/> At that time Bakai was a member of the [[Verkhovna Rada]] (Ukrainian parliament) and a chairman of the Intergaz corporation which had exclusive rights of importing gas to Ukraine from [[Turkmenistan]] and in Ukraine was unofficially referred to as the "Gaz King".<ref name=stange/> The experience of the former manager of [[East Germany national football team]] Bernd Stange in [[Dnipro]] was described in the biographic book that was published in Germany in 2004 "Trainer zwischen den Welten. Bernd Stange" (Coach between the Worlds. Bernd Stange).<ref>[https://www.tagesspiegel.de/potsdam/potsdam-kultur/trainer-zwischen-den-welten-7730524.html Kultur: Trainer zwischen den Welten] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230731164619/https://www.tagesspiegel.de/potsdam/potsdam-kultur/trainer-zwischen-den-welten-7730524.html |date=31 July 2023 }}. www.tagesspiegel.de. 17 April 2004</ref>

During the summer of 1996 Dnipro initiated "repositioning" of its best players along with Bernd Stange to CSKA-Borysfen which in the previous season placed 4th just behind Dnipro.<ref name=stange/> Among those players were [[Oleksandr Yevtushok]], [[Viktor Skrypnyk]], [[Serhiy Kovalets]], [[Serhiy Mizin]], [[Andriy Polunin]], [[Serhiy Nahornyak]], [[Volodymyr Sharan]], [[Oleksandr Palyanytsya]].<ref name=stange/> However, just few day before the start of the [[1996–97 Ukrainian Premier League|1996–97]] season in Ukrainian Vyshcha Liha (Higher League), on the joint session of the Professional Football League (PFL) and the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU), [[FC Arsenal Kyiv|CSKA-Borysfen]] was taken away from its original owners and handed over to Mikhail Grinshpon ("Kiev-Donbass")<ref name=stange/> connected with [[Semion Mogilevich]].<ref>[https://kompromat1.press/articles/104682-otkupitcja_li_grinshpon_ot_nabu Откупится ли Гриншпон от НАБУ?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230731191647/https://kompromat1.press/articles/104682-otkupitcja_li_grinshpon_ot_nabu |date=31 July 2023 }}. kompromat1.press</ref> With the transfer of Dnipro players falling completely through, players ended up in danger of missing a season.<ref name=stange/>