Football in Cape Verde

Football is the most popular sport in Cape Verde. The league is divided into eleven divisions, of which seven of them are singles and two islands, Santiago and Santo Antão has two zones since 2000. The football association is a federation which is known as Federação Caboverdiana de Futebol, it became affiliated with CAF in 1986 and later with FIFA in 2001.

The divisions numbers eleven on nine islands, seven has an island league and two contains two zones each along with the cup, super cup and opening tournament competitions.

The light blue indicates a league having first and second divisions.

Though equivalent to the League Cup used in other countries, Cape Verde are one of a few nations being labelled as an "opening tournament" challenge. Some have become known as an Association Cup in Boa Vista and São Vicente. The light blue indicates a competition having first and second divisions, clubs in different divisions competes in the tournament of the same division (ex. when a club is in a first/premier division, participates in the first/premier division Opening Tournament/Association Cup).

Italics indicate that the tournament is not held.

Cape Verde are one of the most recent countries to have a Champion's Trophy competition labelled as the Champion's Cup. They were first held in 2016, Fogo, Maio and São Vicente are the only regions having the competition.

Football (or soccer) was first introduced around the 1910s, the first area where it was introduced was the island of São Vicente, later it was introduced to the island of Santiago, then Sal. CS Mindelense based in the island of São Vicente is the oldest club in Cape Verde founded in 1919 and became official member on May 25, 1922, soccer was first played, the second oldest is Santiago Island's first football club named Sporting Clube da Praia, later FC Derby founded in August 5, 1929, was founded, two years later on the same city, Vitória FC was founded, two of the clubs were the first named after a Portuguese club. Official competition did not start until 1938 and Mindelense was the first club to win a regional title, the colonial title was then official. Also at the same time, the third island to have a football club was Sal where SC Santa Maria was founded in the then island capital, later in 1952, the fourth island to have a club would be Boa Vista with Sport Sal Rei Club.