About

Mohammedan Sporting Club is an Indian professional sports club based in Kolkata, West Bengal. They are best known for their professional men's association football team, which competes in the Indian Super League, the top of the Indian football league system, as well as Calcutta Football League (CFL), the oldest football league in Asia. Formed in February 1891, it is one of the oldest active football clubs in the country. The club became affiliated with the Indian Football Association (IFA) to play in the second division of CFL before earning promotion to the premier division of CFL in 1933 and a year later, Mohammedan became the first Indian team to win the league and in 1938 became the first team to win it five consecutive times. After the independence of India, Mohammedan became the first Indian club to win a football tournament on foreign soil by lifting the Aga Khan Gold Cup in 1960. In 1996, the club was one of the founding members of India's first nationwide league – National Football League (NFL). For all its laurels, Mohammedan has never won a top-tier league, only managing to win the 2004–05 NFL Second Division to qualify for NFL, and the 2020 I-League qualifiers to qualify for I-League, which was then the first-tier league of India. They have won the Federation Cup twice in 1983–84 and 1984–85. Founded during the early years of India's independence movement, Mohammedan had been a symbol of progressive Muslim identity through the tumultuous period of freedom struggle in colonial India and the subsequent struggle for status in an altered post-partition landscape. Therefore, the club is primarily supported by the Muslim population of Bengal and it had provided a major backing to the community residing in Kolkata by spreading the sport to a sizeable population during its foundation days. This led to communal rivalry with its cross-town competitors – East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, which were primarily supported by the Hindu population of Bengal during the early decades. The rivalries with both the teams have become non-communal and mostly insignificant over the course of time due to the rarity of their meetings at major tournaments. The club's youth team took part in Manchester United Premier Cup of India.