The Indian football champions are the winners of the highest league in Indian men's football, which since

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

is the

Indian Super League The Indian Super League (ISL) is an Indian professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the Indian football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Organised by the All India Football Federat ...

. Though Indian football tournaments dates back to the eighteenth century, a proper league system was established in 1996 with the commencement of

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). Since its inception in the 1996–97 season, the champions of the NFL were considered as the national champions. However, after the 2006–07 season of the NFL, the league was rebranded as the

I-League The I-League (known as Hero I-League for sponsorship ties with Hero MotoCorp) is the second-tier men's professional football competition of the Indian football league system. It is currently contested by 12 clubs across the country with the w ...

. Since 2007–08 season, the I-League champions were considered the national champions until 2016–17 season. Since 2017–18 season the ISL became the joint premier football league of the country along with I-League. The ISL regular season premiers represents India in the

AFC Champions League The AFC Champions League (abbreviated as ACL) is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation, and contested by Asia's top-division football clubs. It is the most prestigious club competition ...

group stage, the I-League champions represents India in the

AFC Cup The AFC Cup is an annual continental club football competition organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Under its current rules, the competition is played primarily between clubs from nations that did not receive direct qualifying s ...

group stage, and the winner of the Indian Super League's play-offs gets a slot into the AFC Cup play-offs. However, the winners of the ISL play-offs are considered as the ISL champions since its inception in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

. There are 12 clubs who have won either the National Football League or the I-League and 5 clubs who have won the Indian Super League since the league became the joint top division in India. JCT were the first club to have won any championship, winning the 1996–97 NFL.

Mohun Bagan Mohun Bagan Athletic Club is an Indian professional sports club based in Kolkata, West Bengal. Founded in 1889, its football section is one of the oldest in India and Asia. The club is most notable for its victory over East Yorkshire Regiment ...

and

Dempo Dempo Mining Corporation Limited is a prominent mining company from the western Indian state of Goa. The mineral business was founded by Mr. Vasantrao S. Dempo in 1941 along with his younger brother Mr. Vaikuntrao Dempo. Mr. Vasantrao S. Demp ...

are the most successful clubs, winning championships five times each. Mohun Bagan won the NFL thrice and the I-League twice, whereas, Dempo won the NFL twice and the I-League thrice. Also,

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

is the only club who has won both the I-League and the ISL at least once; they won the I-League twice and the ISL once.

History

The first Indian football league, the

(commonly known as the NFL) was an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

league competition in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

which was organised into three divisions. The ''Premier Division'' of the league was first introduced in 1996, though the country already had a long history in the sport thanks to the likes of the

IFA Shield The IFA Shield is an annual football competition organized by the Indian Football Association. The IFA is the governing body of football in the state of West Bengal, came into existence in 1893. Named after the association, the IFA Shield tourn ...

and the

Federation Cup Federation Cup or Fed Cup is the former name of the premier world team competition in women's tennis. Federation Cup may also refer to: * Capital Football Federation Cup, an Australian territory-based association football tournament *Federation Cup ...

. The league though is now transformed into the

and continues with that name. The change was supposed to bring more popularity to Indian Football. The first league season of

consisted of eight teams from the NFL plus two promoted teams from the former Division Two. The 1996–97 Indian National Football League was the first season of the NFL and ended with JCT Mills FC being crowned champions. The NFL era though saw Kolkata clubs

East Bengal ur, , common_name = East Bengal , status = Province of the Dominion of Pakistan , p1 = Bengal Presidency , flag_p1 = Flag of British Bengal.svg , s1 = East ...

and

had the most championships with three respectively. The

era is different though as most of the champions of the league have come from

Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...

. Currently the team with the most championships in

who have won three championships in the league. They are also one of the two teams with the most championships overall along with

(5 titles each). In 2014, a new football league named

has started. In its first three seasons it was running without recognition from AFC. Before 2017–18 season, ISL get recognition from

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in some countries/territories in Asia and Oceania. It has 47 member countries most of which are located in Asia. Australia, formerly in ...

(AFC). In July 2017, it was proposed by the

All India Football Federation The All India Football Federation (AIFF) is the national governing body of football in India. It is a member of FIFA, the international governing body of football and affiliated to Asian Football Confederation. It is affiliated to Ministry o ...

(AIFF) that the Indian Super League champion be granted a spot in the

, Asia's second-tier club competition. On 25 July 2017, the AFC approved the AIFF's proposal. Thus, from the 2017–18 season, the Indian Super League champions were allowed to participate in the AFC Cup from the qualification stages of the competition. Meanwhile, India's spot in the

, Asia's top club competition, was still kept by the

, thus two leagues were parallelly running in the country. In October 2019, a roadmap for development of league in India was proposed. All stakeholders accepted the proposal where it was announced that ISL premiers would now be entitled to the

, starting from 2021 edition and the I-League champion will get to play the

National League Champions

National Football League (1996–2007)

I-League (2007–2017)

I-League and Indian Super League (2017–2022)

''Since 2017–18 season, I-League and Indian Super League shared joint top flight status in Indian Football''

I-League

Indian Super League

Indian Super League (2022–present)

Total titles won

There are 12 clubs who have won either the

or the

. There are also 5 clubs who have won the

since the league became the joint top division in India. Teams in bold compete in the

for the

season. * -

ATK Mohun Bagan ATK Mohun Bagan FC () is an Indian professional football club based in Kolkata, West Bengal. The club competes in Indian Super League, the top flight of Indian football. The club, which was formed as a merger between the football section of m ...

is a merger of the football section of multi-sport club

and former football club ATK * – Defunct clubs

By state

By city/town

National Cup winners

Federation Cup (1977–2017)

Super Cup (2018–present)

Total Cups won

*''*'' : shared *''#'' :There were two federation cups in 1996

Multiple trophy wins

The Double

References

External links

India – List of National Champions
at the

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around the ...

{{Football in India

Champions A champion (from the late Latin ''campio'') is the Victory, victor in a challenge, Competition, contest or competition. There can be a territorial pyramid of championships, e.g. local, regional / provincial, state, national, continental and w ...