FC Spartak Moscow (Russian: ФК Спартак Москва, romanized: FK Spartak Moskva, pronounced [spɐrˈtak mɐˈskva]) is a Russian professional football club based in Moscow. Having won 12 Soviet championships (second only to Dynamo Kyiv) and 10 Russian championships (a record jointly held with Zenit St Petersburg), it is the country's most successful club. They have also won a record 10 Soviet Cups, 5 Russian Cups and one Russian Super Cup. Spartak have also reached the semi-finals of UEFA Europa League, UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Cup Winner's Cup.
Foundation and early period (1883–1941)
In the early days of Soviet football, government agencies such as the police, army, and railroads created their own clubs. Many statesmen saw in the wins of their teams the superiority over the opponents patronising other teams. Almost all the teams had such kind of patrons; Dynamo Moscow aligned with the Militsiya, CSKA Moscow with the Red Army, and Spartak, created by a trade union public organization, was considered to be "the people's team".
The history of the football club and sports society "Spartak" originates from the Russian Gymnastics Society (RGO Sokol), which was founded on 16 May 1883. The society was founded under the influence of the Pan-Slavic "Sokol movement" with the aim of promoting the "Sokolsk gymnastics" and then sports including fencing, wrestling, figure skating, skating, football, hockey, lawn tennis, boxing, skis, athletics, and cycling. In the RGO Sokol began to play football in the summer of 1897; the professional football section was founded in the spring of 1909. On 1 August 1920, the football team began to act under the name MCS, or Moscow Sports Club, with 18 April 1922 considered to be the formal foundation date.
In 1923, the MCS, later named Krasnaya Presnya (Red Presnya), was formed by Ivan Artemyev and involved Nikolai Starostin, especially in its football team. Presnya is a district of Moscow renowned for the radical politics of its inhabitants; for example, it represented the centre of the Moscow uprising of 1905.
The team grew, building a stadium, supporting itself from ticket sales and playing matches across the Russian SFSR. As part of a 1926 reorganization of football in the Soviet Union, Starostin arranged for the club to be sponsored by the food workers union and the club moved to the 13,000 seat Tomsky Stadium, known as Pishcheviki. The team changed sponsors repeatedly over the following years as it competed with Dinamo Moscow, whose 35,000 seat Dynamo Stadium lay close by.
As a high-profile sportsman, Starostin came into close contact with Alexander Kosarev, secretary of the Komsomol (Communist Union of Youth) who already had a strong influence on sport and wanted to extend it. In November 1934, with funding from Promkooperatsiia, Kosarev employed Starostin and his brothers to develop his team to make it more powerful. Again the team changed its name, this time to "Spartak Moscow" (the name Spartak means "Spartacus", a gladiator who led an uprising against Ancient Rome).
The club founders, four Starostin brothers, played a big role in the formation of the team. The Starostins played for the red-whites in the 1930s but right before World War II they were subjected to repression as the leaders of the most hated team by the state authorities. Elder brother Nikolai Starostin wrote in his books that he had survived in the State Prison System due to his participation in football and with Spartak (after the political rehabilitation, in 1954, he would later return to the team as the squad's manager).
In 1935, Starostin proposed the name Spartak. It was inspired by the Italian novel Spartaco, written by Raffaello Giovagnoli, and means Spartacus ("Spartak" in Russian), a gladiator-slave who led a rebellion against Rome. Starostin is also credited with the creation of the Spartak logo. The same year, the club became a part of newly created Spartak sports society.
Czechoslovak manager Antonin Fivebr is credited as the first head coach of Spartak, though he worked as a consultant in several clubs simultaneously. In 1936, the Soviet Top League was established, where its first championship was won by Dynamo Moscow while Spartak won its second, which was held in the same calendar year. Before World War II, Spartak earned two more titles. In 1937, Spartak won the football tournament of Workers' Olympiad at Antwerp.
During the 1950s, Spartak, together with Dynamo, dominated the Soviet Top League. When the Soviet national team won gold medals at the Melbourne Olympics, it consisted largely of Spartak players. Spartak captain Igor Netto was the captain of the national team from 1954 to 1963. In the 1960s, Spartak won two league titles, but by the mid-1960s, Spartak was no more regarded as a leading Soviet club. The club was even less successful in the 1970s and in 1976 Spartak was relegated into the lower league.
The following season in 1979, fans stayed with the team despite being relegated to the lower division, keeping the stadium full. Konstantin Beskov became the head coach. He had made his name playing for Spartak's main rivals, Dynamo Moscow). He introduced several young players, including Rinat Dasayev and Georgi Yartsev. Spartak returned the following season and won the title in 1979, beating Dynamo Kyiv.
On 20 October 1982, disaster struck during the UEFA Cup match between Spartak and Dutch club HFC Haarlem. Sixty-six people died in a crowd crush during the match, making it Russia's worst sporting disaster.
In 1989, Spartak won its last USSR Championship, rivals Dynamo Kyiv 2–1 in the closing round. Spartak's striker Valery Shmarov scored the "golden" free kick with almost no time left. The next season, Spartak reached the European Cup semi-final, consequently eliminating Napoli on penalties and Real Madrid (with 3–1 away victory), but losing to Marseille.
A new page in the club's history began when the Soviet Union collapsed and its championship ceased to exist. In the newly created Russian league, Spartak, led by coach and president Oleg Romantsev, dominated and won all but one title between 1992 and 2001. Season after season the team also represented Russia in the Champions League.
Problems began in the new century, however. Several charismatic players (Ilya Tsymbalar and Andrey Tikhonov among others) left the club as a result of conflict with Romantsev. Later, Romantsev sold his stock to oil magnate Andrei Chervichenko, who in 2003 became the club president. The two were soon embroiled in a row that would continue until Romantsev was sacked in 2003 with the club suffering several sub-par seasons until Chervichenko finally sold his stock in 2004. The new ownership made a number of front office changes with the aim of returning the team to the top of the Russian Premier League.
Spartak has been entitled to place a golden star on its badge since 2003 to commemorate winning five Russian championships in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996 and 1997. They have won the championship another four times since 1997.
In 2004, Leonid Fedun became the club's President and second-largest shareholder behind his business partner Vagit Alekperov.