I had the same issue when I played in this league, as you have pointed out sponsorship is really the only way to stay afloat (gate receipts are pretty much non existent as most clubs in the league get quite low attendances). From what I have seen, it is that clubs in the top two/three tiers usually have a "general sponsor" or grant to keep them afloat. Some of these do also seem questionable (for example Karpaty in the third tier have a quite ridiculous £3m a year sponsorship which increases up to £9m a year within two years, and this increases further if they reach the top flight, upon testing I have seen it reaching over £30m a year once they reached the top flight. They do not have any debts). You are doing a journeyman save right? Really your best bet is to find a different club in Ukraine (if you want to stay in that league) that gets one of these "sponsorships" (Outside of the obvious two Metalist and Dnipro-1 get very decent sponsorships for the league, and quite a few other clubs in the league get fairly reasonable sponsorships to keep them afloat) as unless you can make big money off player sales (which will be difficult as the reputation of clubs will be quite low outside of the big two, which will majorly impact player values) you will end up heavily in the red. You can also try scouting parts of Africa and South America for players as they can yield some good returns if you know where to look (for example in Africa Ivory Coast, Egypt and Nigeria give good cheap regens).