BC Budivelnyk

BC Budivelnyk Kyiv (in Ukrainian: Будівельник Київ) is a Ukrainian professional basketball club based in Kyiv. The club plays in the Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague. In June 2018, it was forced to withdraw from the Superleague due to open debts. Two years later, the club returned its activities. The club holds a record eleven Ukrainian championships and three Ukrainian Cups, as well as a Soviet championship (1989). Budivelnyk is owned and operated by the banking and investing company PrivatBank. History Founded in the club's current form in 1962, the club was one of the leading clubs in Soviet League basketball. It was formed out of another team from Kyiv, SKIF, that was originally established in 1945. The team was established as a team of the Republican Trade Union Volunteer Sport Society Avanhard, under sponsorship of the local municipal building company Kyivmiskbud-4 (Kyiv-City-Construction-4). In Soviet times, the team played at the 7,000 seat Kyiv Sports Palace. The team won the Soviet League in 1989, and the Ukrainian League six times. Following the team's long period of success, a period of time in which the team declined ensued, and it was relegated to the lower Ukrainian division, due to financial problems. However, in 2006, the team was rescued by a group of businessmen who invested considerable resources into it, thus allowing it to return to the top league of Ukrainian basketball. Within two years, the team once again became one of the strongest teams in Ukraine, finishing second in the Ukrainian National League.