Founded 1975 | ||
Region Fogo Island, Cape Verde Number of teams 10 (Premier Division)
8 (Second Division) Promotion to Cape Verdean Football Championship Domestic cup(s) Fogo Island Cup
Fogo Island Super Cup Current champions Vulcânicos FC (9th time)
(2015-16) | ||
The Fogo Island League is a regional championship played in Fogo Island, Cape Verde. The winner of the championship plays in the Cape Verdean football Championships of each season. Its current president is Pedro Fernandes Pires since September 2015.
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The league has the third largest number of clubs after Santiago's two zones and ahead of São Vicente.
About the Island/Regional League
Before the league was established, the first football/soccer club was Vulcânicos which was founded in 1953, then Académica was founded later, Botafogo was founded in 1968 and Cutelinho in 1983. The newest clubs are Spartak d'Aguadinha established in 2003 and Valência in the late-2000s.
The island league was formed in 1975 when Cape Verde became independent, unofficial competitions took place in years before the founding. The first club that would win the most number of titles was Botafogo during the 1970s, their first nine title was won from 1976 to 1983, later two consecutive between 1984 and 1985 and their last in 2010. Académica for some times won titles, their first was in 1984, they won two consecutive in 1987 and 1988, then every two years between 1991 and 1997 and 2002 and 2004, Vulcânicos won three consecutive titles from 1998 up to 2000, they were the next club to win titles every two years between 2007 and 2011, Académica was the next club to win three consecutive titles from 2012 up to 2014. The 2014 volcanic eruption in mid-November delayed the season by about a month and matches were rescheduled, later in the season saw a couple of high scoring matches, the highest Spartak would finish with 12 points over Parque Real on April 12. In 23 years, a new first-timer in titles Spartak was the island champion for 2015 and is the recent victor of Fogo. Cutelinho scored the most number of goals in the first weeks of the 2015-16 season, later taken by Académica in the mid season, nevertheless Vulcânicos won their next title in five years.
In the late-2000s, it would become the next island league to also have a second division. Today, the second division features a group stage contaning groups A and B, the top 2 of each group advances into the semis and into the promotional final, the first place heads straight to the premier division, the second placed club plays a ninth place club in a division decisional match. At that time, Fogo had the third most number of clubs in the nation.
Botafogo has the most number of island titles with 17, the second is Académica (Fogo) with 13 and third is Vulcânicos with 9, the club with the fewest are two clubs with a single title, Cutelinho and recently Spartak d'Aguadinha.
One of the largest scoring matches in league history is Spartak d'Aguadinha. Spartak has one of the most number of goals scored in a single season with 73 in the 2014-15 season.
In the second division on February 11, 2017, Nova Era defeated Brasilim 0-20 and made it the highest scoring match to date of any of the regional leagues and one of the highest in history. It put the club into the promotional zone and put União out from ever returning to the Premier Division.
Winners
Source:Champion's Cup
A new competition called the Fogo Champion's Cup, equivalent to the newly created Champions' Trophy was introduced in 2016. The first edition took place on October 15, 2016 and featured a champion from the Premier and the Second Divisions. Vulcânicos and ABC de Patim were the first clubs to participate.