Indian Football League (1st tier)
National Football League (1996–2007) I-League (2007–2017) I-League & Indian Super League (2017–2022) Indian Super League (2022–present)
Country
India
Founded
1996
Number of teams
12 (2023–24)
Current Premiers
Mumbai City FC
Current Champions
Mohun Bagan
Most successful club
Mohun Bagan (6 titles)

The Indian football champions are the winners of the highest league in Indian men's football, which is currently the Indian Super League.

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 (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. 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 upto 2021–22 season. Since 2022–23 season ISL became the only top tier football league of the country and hence ISL champions are considered as the national champions. However, the winners of the ISL play-offs were considered as the ISL champions since its inception in 2014.

There are 12 clubs who have won either the National Football League or the I-League and 6 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 are the most successful club via winning championships six times. Mohun Bagan won the NFL thrice, I-League twice and ISL once.

History

The first Indian football league, the National Football League (commonly known as the NFL) was an association football league competition in India 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 and the Federation Cup. The league though is now transformed into the I-League and continues with that name. The change was supposed to bring more popularity to Indian Football. The first league season of I-League 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 and Mohun Bagan had the most championships with three respectively. The I-League era is different though as most of the champions of the league have come from Goa.

Currently the team with the most championships in I-League is Dempo who have won three championships in the league.

In 2014, a new football league named Indian Super League 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 (AFC). In July 2017, it was proposed by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) that the Indian Super League champion be granted a spot in the AFC Cup, Asia's second-tier club competition.^[1] 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.^[1] Meanwhile, India's spot in the AFC Champions League, Asia's top club competition, was still kept by the I-League,^[1] 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 AFC Champions League, starting from 2021 edition and the I-League champion will get to play the AFC Cup.^[2] From 2022–23 season the AFC Cup slot from I-League has been transferred to Super Cup and ISL became the only top tier League in India.

National League Champions

National Football League (1996–2007)

Season	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Winning manager	Leading goalscorers (Club)	Goals
1996–97	JCT	Churchill Brothers	East Bengal	Sukhwinder Singh	Bhaichung Bhutia (JCT)	14
1997–98	Mohun Bagan	East Bengal	Salgaocar	T. K. Chathunni	Raman Vijayan (Kochin)	10
1998–99	Salgaocar	East Bengal	Churchill Brothers	Shabbir Ali	Philip Mensah (Churchill Brothers)	11
1999–2000	Mohun Bagan (2)	Churchill Brothers	Salgaocar	Subrata Bhattacharya	Igor Shkvyrin (Mohun Bagan)	11
2000–01	East Bengal	Mohun Bagan	Churchill Brothers	Monoranjan Bhattacharya	José Ramirez Barreto (Mohun Bagan)	14
2001–02	Mohun Bagan (3)	Churchill Brothers	Vasco	Subrata Bhattacharya	Yusif Yakubu (Churchill Brothers)	18
2002–03	East Bengal (2)	Salgaocar	Vasco	Subhash Bhowmick	Yusif Yakubu (Churchill Brothers)	21
2003–04	East Bengal (3)	Dempo	Mahindra United	Subhash Bhowmick	Cristiano Júnior (East Bengal)	15
2004–05	Dempo	Sporting Goa	East Bengal	Armando Colaco	Dudu Omagbemi (Sporting Goa)	21
2005–06	Mahindra United	East Bengal	Mohun Bagan	Derrick Pereira	Ranti Martins (Dempo)	13
2006–07	Dempo (2)	JCT	Mahindra United	Armando Colaco	Odafa Onyeka Okolie (Churchill Brothers)	18

I-League (2007–2017)

Season	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Winning manager	Leading goalscorers (Club)	Goals
2007–08	Dempo (3)	Churchill Brothers	JCT	Armando Colaco	Odafa Onyeka Okolie (Churchill Brothers)	22
2008–09	Churchill Brothers	Mohun Bagan	Sporting Goa	Zoran Đorđević	Odafa Onyeka Okolie (Churchill Brothers)	24
2009–10	Dempo (4)	Churchill Brothers	Pune	Armando Colaco	Odafa Onyeka Okolie (Churchill Brothers)	21
2010–11	Salgaocar (2)	East Bengal	Dempo	Karim Bencherifa	Ranti Martins (Dempo)	28
2011–12	Dempo (5)	East Bengal	Churchill Brothers	Armando Colaco	Ranti Martins (Dempo)	32
2012–13	Churchill Brothers (2)	Pune	East Bengal	Mariano Dias	Ranti Martins (Prayag United)	26
2013–14	Bengaluru	East Bengal	Salgaocar	Ashley Westwood	Cornell Glen (Shillong Lajong) Darryl Duffy (Salgaocar) Sunil Chhetri (Bengaluru)	14
2014–15	Mohun Bagan (4)	Bengaluru	Royal Wahingdoh	Sanjoy Sen	Ranti Martins (East Bengal)	17
2015–16	Bengaluru (2)	Mohun Bagan	East Bengal	Ashley Westwood	Ranti Martins (East Bengal)	12
2016–17	Aizawl	Mohun Bagan	East Bengal	Khalid Jamil	Aser Pierrick Dipanda (Shillong Lajong)	11

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

From 2017–18 season until 2021–22 season, I-League and Indian Super League shared joint top flight status in Indian Football

I-League

Season	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	Third place	Winning manager	Leading goalscorers (Club)	Goals
2017–18	Minerva Punjab	NEROCA	Mohun Bagan	Khogen Singh	Aser Pierrick Dipanda (Mohun Bagan)	13
2018–19	Chennai City	East Bengal	Real Kashmir	Akbar Nawas	Pedro Manzi (Chennai City) Willis Plaza (Churchill Brothers)	21
2019–20	Mohun Bagan (5)	Not awarded[lower-alpha 1]		Kibu Vicuña	Aser Pierrick Dipanda (Punjab)	12
2020–21	Gokulam Kerala	Churchill Brothers	TRAU	Vincenzo Alberto Annese	Bidyashagar Singh (TRAU)	12
2021–22	Gokulam Kerala (2)	Mohammedan	Sreenidi Deccan	Vincenzo Alberto Annese	Marcus Joseph (Mohammedan)	16

Indian Super League

Season	Champions (number of titles)	Runners-up	League Winners Shield/Premiers (number of titles)[lower-alpha 2]	Regular season runners-up	Winning manager (Champions)	Leading goalscorers (Club)	Goals
2017–18	Chennaiyin[lower-alpha 3]	Bengaluru	Didn't exist[lower-alpha 2]		John Gregory	Coro (Goa)	18
2018–19	Bengaluru (3)	Goa			Carles Cuadrat	Coro (Goa)	16
2019–20	ATK[lower-alpha 3]	Chennaiyin	Goa	ATK	Antonio Lopez Habas	Roy Krishna (ATK) Nerijus Valskis (Chennaiyin) Bartholomew Ogbeche (Kerala Blasters)	15
2020–21	Mumbai City	ATK Mohun Bagan	Mumbai City	ATK Mohun Bagan	Sergio Lobera	Igor Angulo (Goa) Roy Krishna (ATK Mohun Bagan)	14
2021–22	Hyderabad	Kerala Blasters	Jamshedpur	Hyderabad	Manolo Márquez	Bartholomew Ogbeche (Hyderabad)	18

1. ↑ On 18 April 2020, All India Football Federation, the organising body of the league announced Mohun Bagan as champions and decided to cancel the remaining matches due to the COVID-19 pandemic. No team was relegated, and the remaining prize money (apart from the champion's prize money) was equally divided among the 10 teams as the remaining teams were closely placed in the league table.^[3]
2. 1 2 Since 2019–20 ISL season, the regular season table toppers i.e. Premiers are awarded with a League Winners Shield and granted a spot in AFC Champions League group stage.
3. 1 2 ATK won the ISL title in 2014 and 2016 and Chennaiyin won the ISL title in 2015 before 2017–18 season when the ISL got official recognition from AFC.

Indian Super League (2022–present)

Season	Champions	Runners-up	League Winners Shield/Premiers (number of titles)[lower-alpha 1]	Regular season runners-up	Winning manager (Champions)	Leading goalscorers (Club)	Goals
2022–23	ATK Mohun Bagan (6)	Bengaluru	Mumbai City (2)	Hyderabad	Des Buckingham	Dimitri Petratos (ATK Mohun Bagan) Diego Maurício (Odisha) Cleiton Silva (East Bengal)	12
2023–24	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

1. ↑ Since 2019–20 ISL season, the regular season table toppers i.e. Premiers are awarded with a League Winners Shield and granted a spot in AFC Champions League group stage.

Total titles won

There are 12 clubs who have won either the National Football League or the I-League. There are also 6 clubs who have won the Indian Super League since the league became the joint top division in India.

Teams in bold compete in the Indian Super League for the 2022–23 season.

• † – Defunct clubs

National Cup winners

Total Cups won

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

Multiple trophy wins

See also

• List of Indian football first tier top scorers
• List of association football competitions
• Super Cup
• Durand Cup
• I-League
• Indian Super League
• Football in India
• List of Indian women's football champions

References

External links

• India – List of National Champions at the RSSSF