The 2017–18 Ukrainian Cup was the 27th annual season of Ukraine's football knockout competition. The competition was planned to be started on 9 July 2017 and concluded on 9 May 2018. This season the competition's administration was passed on to the Football Federation of Ukraine that previously was conducted by both the Premier League and Professional Football League. The number of participants has increased to 52 and is the biggest in the last five years. The FFU also promised to introduce a system of bonuses for this season's competition, yet did not disclosed them. All competition rounds consisted of a single game with a home field advantage granted to a team from lower league. Qualification for the competition is granted to all professional clubs and finalists of the Ukrainian Amateur Cup as long as those clubs will be able to pass the season's attestation (licensing). FC Shakhtar Donetsk was the defending winner for the last two seasons. The Donetsk club has reached the competition finals in the last seven years winning five of them. There were around 300 clubs over the history of competition and it is a debut season for seven of them, Dnipro-1, Ahrobiznes, Metalist 1925, Polissya, Tavriya Simferopol, Sudnobudivnyk, and Prykarpattia. Both qualified amateur clubs have already participated in the competition before. It should be mentioned that only 10 clubs participated in every season of the tournament. Team allocation and schedule Distribution Rounds schedule Competition schedule First Preliminary round (1/64) In this round entered three representatives from the First League, 21 clubs from the Second League, two representatives from the Amateur Cup. The draw for this round that took place 30 June 2017 at the House of Football in Kyiv was announced on 27 June 2017. The round matches were played on 9 July 2017. The archive of Ukrainian Association of Football "Footpass" shows the Premier League club NK Veres Rivne playing at the first preliminary round instead of FC Lviv (please, see Veres – Lviv swap). The clubs' "swap" occurred only next season, while the archive has been updated to show something that is completely wrong. Notes: On 5 July 2017 the club director of Skala Stryi confirmed that the club will not show up for the cup game against Tavriya. On 24 July 2017 it was announced that the FFU Control and Disciplinary Committee awarded a technical loss to Skala (0:3) and fined it for