Full name | Dempo Sports Club | |||
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Nickname(s) | Golden Eagles, The Whites | |||
Short name | DSC | |||
Founded | 1961 1967 (as Dempo Souza Sports Club) | (as Clube Desportivo de Bicholim)|||
Ground | Duler Stadium Ella Academy Ground | |||
Capacity | 5,000 500 | |||
Owner | Dempo Group | |||
Head coach | Samir Naik | |||
League |
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Website | demposportsclub | |||
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Dempo Sports Club[1] is an Indian professional football club based in Panaji, Goa.[2] The club currently competes in the I-League, the second tier of the Indian football league system, and the Goa Professional League.[3][4] Dempo is owned and sponsored by the Dempo Mining Corporation Limited. Known popularly as "The Whites" and "Golden Eagles",[5] the club has been a constant participant in the National football championships,[6][7] and gained immense popularity in the first four decades of its existence.[8][9]
Dempo became the first Indian football club to reach the semi-final of the AFC Cup tournament in 2008.[10][11] The club has won several accolades and honors. In the 2004–05 season, the club won its maiden National Football League title.[12][13] They won the league again in the 2006–07 season, and followed it with the three I-League triumphs in 2007–08 in its inaugural version,[14][15] and then in 2009–10, and again in 2011–12,[16] making them the second most successful club on the national front with 5 domestic top-division league titles; after Kolkata giant Mohun Bagan.[17][18][19][20]
The club has also won 14 Goa League Champions Cups, 4 Rovers Cups, 2 Indian Super Cups, Federation Cup in 2004,[21][22] and Durand Cup in 2006.[23][24] Dempo was the first Goan club to win Rovers cup. It also won the inaugural edition of AWES Cup in 2017 and won multiple times in Goa Police Cup. Dempo emerged as fifth ranked Indian team, and 711 universally, in the international rankings of clubs during the first ten years of the 21st century (2001–2010), issued by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics in 2011.[25]