Dempo S.C.

Dempo Sports Club (known simply Dempo) is an Indian professional football club based in Panjim, Goa. The club currently competes in Goa Professional League. Dempo is owned and sponsored by the Dempo Mining Corporation Limited. Known popularly as "The Whites" and "Golden Eagles", the club has been a constant participant in the National football championships, and gained immense popularity in the last four decades of its existence. Dempo became the first Indian football club that reached the Semi-final of the AFC Cup tournament in 2008. The club has won several accolades and honors. In the 2004–05 season, the club won its maiden National Football League title. 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, and then in 2009–10, and again in 2011–12, making them one of the most successful clubs on the national front with 5 National league titles; joint with Kolkata giants Mohun Bagan as the only teams to have the honour on 5 occasions. The club has also won 14 Goa League Champions Cups, 4 Rovers Cups, 2 Indian Super Cups, Federation Cup in 2004, and Durand Cup in 2006. 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. Club's youth and academy teams competed in the Youth League of India. History Dempo Sports Club began as "Bicholim Football Club", which was a top First Division league side in the 1960s. Football lovers in the country remember the Bicholim Football Club as one of the most talented football club in the country. Players including Subhash Sinari, Bernard Olivera, Tolentino Serrao, Bhaskar, Kalidas Gaad, Manohar Pednekar, Bhai Pednekar, Ganpat Gaonkar and Pandurang Gaonkar are still remembered to the Bicholim Football Club on a completely different standard compared to the other sports club existing at that moment.