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.

Divisions

The divisions numbers ten on eight islands including the two zones

History

The first football competition began in the early 1950s and CS Mindelense won their first title in 1953, then, these competitions were territorial since it was an overseas province of Portugal until its independence on July 1975 Several competitions were cancelled including in 1954 and between 1956 and 1957. Another cancellations occurred when the last game before independence played and won their last title. The first game after independence was in 1975 and their first title was claimed by CS Mindelense in 1976. The last two cancellations occurred in 1981/1982 and 1986/1987.

In the early-1980s, the creation of more soccer teams led to creating a new division which became based by island except for one of them at the time there were only six, of which one of them qualified for the two groups. In the mid-1990s, the division were divided into nine which qualified into three groups, A, B and C, and now eleven new insular zones were added for Santiago and Santo Antão and Group C was eliminated reducing to its current two-grouping system. Also in 2000, Santiago's South zone became the only zone ever to feature a first and second level divisions.

The opening tournaments as well as its insular cup were added in 1999 in nine islands.