 The very first one was awarded in 1950 by the Football Federation of Ukraine, but its award discontinued in 1960.Since 1960, the honours of awarding player of the year was picked up by the weekly "Radyanskyi sport" ("Soviet sports"), which in 1965 changed its name to "Sportyvna Hazeta" ("Sports Gazette").For unknown reasons, the tradition was interrupted and in 1968 it was given out by another former Kievan Russian language newspaper "Komsomolskoe znamya" ("Banner of the Communist Union of Youth"), which announced both Vasyl Turyanchyk and Volodymyr Muntyan as the best players of Ukraine, then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.