Mohun Bagan Super Giant

Mohun Bagan Super Giant, commonly referred to as Mohun Bagan, is an Indian professional football club based in Kolkata, West Bengal. Founded in 1889, it is one of the oldest football clubs in Asia. The club competes in the Indian Super League, the top tier of Indian football league system. The club is most notable for its victory over the East Yorkshire Regiment in the 1911 IFA Shield final. This victory made Mohun Bagan the first all-Indian club to win a championship over a British club and was a major moment during India's push for independence.
The club's full name for much of its history was Mohun Bagan Athletic Club, often shortened to just Mohun Bagan; from 1998 to 2015 the club took on the name McDowell Mohun Bagan Football Club due to a sponsorship. On 16 January 2020, it was announced that the RPSG Group (KGSPL), the owners of ATK FC, along with former cricketer Sourav Ganguly and businessmen Utsav Parekh, acquired an 80% stake in Mohun Bagan Football Club (India) Pvt Ltd, the legal entity owning the football division of Mohun Bagan. ATK FC was officially disbanded on 1 July 2020, and Mohun Bagan entered the Indian Super League in the 2020-21 season with the name ATK Mohun Bagan. In 2023, after severe protests from the Mohun Bagan supporters, KGSPL removed "ATK" and changed the name to Mohun Bagan Super Giant, moving the club closer to its historic name.
Mohun Bagan has won the top-flight football league a record seven times — Indian Super League twice, I-League twice and National Football League thrice. They are the most successful Indian club in the history of the Federation Cup, having won the championship a record 14 times. The club has also won several other trophies, including the ISL playoffs (1 time), the Durand Cup (17 times), the IFA Shield (22 times), the Rovers Cup (14 times) and the Calcutta Football League (30 times).
In the 2024–25 Indian Super League, Mohun Bagan became the first club to successfully defend the League Shield as they won their 2nd consecutive League Shield and 7th Indian League title, a record in Indian football. Mohun Bagan also became the 1st ISL Club to cross the 50 point mark and the 1st Indian Club to reach 1000 points mark in the Indian National Football League history.
The club annually contests in Asia's oldest rivalry, the Kolkata Derby against its long-time local rival East Bengal, with the first derby match being played on 8 August 1921. Mohun Bagan was one of the founding members of National Football League in 1996, and has never been relegated from the top-tier league of the country. On 29 July 2019, during its 130th year, the club was inducted into the "Club of Pioneers", a network of the oldest existing football clubs around the world.
Mohun Bagan was established on 15 August 1889, with Bhupendra Nath Bose becoming the first president of the newly founded club and Jyotindra Nath Bose the first secretary of it. Mohun Bagan played their first match in 1889 against the team of Eden Hindu Hostel students and lost 1–0.
During this period, the organizers of ISL, as well as the club managements themselves, made efforts to include Mohun Bagan and East Bengal in the league. Accordingly, on 16 January 2020, it was announced that the RPSG Group (KGSPL), the owners of ATK FC, along with former cricketer Sourav Ganguly and businessmen Utsav Parekh, acquired an 80% stake in Mohun Bagan Football Club (India) Pvt Ltd, the legal entity owning the football division of Mohun Bagan. ATK FC was officially disbanded on 1 July 2020 and Mohun Bagan entered the Indian Super League in the 2020-21 season with the name ATK Mohun Bagan . In 2023, after severe protests from the Mohun Bagan supporters, KGSPL removed ATK and changed the name to Mohun Bagan Super Giant.
Mohun Bagan performed well in their first two ISL seasons under Antonio Lopez Habas, but it was in the 2022-23 season when they won their 1st ISL Cup title under Juan Ferrando by defeating Bengaluru FC 4-3 on penalties. After the win, Mr. Sanjeev Goenka himself announced the removal of ATK and the change of name to Mohun Bagan Super Giant.
Mohun Bagan started the 2023-24 season by winning the 2023 Durand Cup after defeating arch rivals East Bengal 1-0 in the Final and this was their record 17th Durand Cup win. They started the 2023-24 Indian Super League very well but their form declined and Antonio Habas replaced Ferrando as the head coach. After this, they turned things around with stong performances from the players and won their 1st ISL League Shield by defeating Mumbai City 2-1 on the last match day of the 2023-24 season. This was the 6th Indian League title for Mohun Bagan. In the 2024-25 Indian Super League Mohun Bagan became the first team to successfully defend their League title as they won their 2nd consecutive League Shield and 7th Indian League title with a 1-0 win against Odisha FC with two matches left. Mohun Bagan ended their league stage campaign with a win over FC Goa with 2-0, shattering numerous ISL and Indian football team records, notably being the first Indian club to reach 1000 points in cummulative Indian top division leagues competitions. As of March 2025, Mohun Bagan have never lost a Kolkata derby to arch rivals East Bengal in the ISL and have dominated the fixture significantly.
The club's crest is circular and consists of a sailing country boat painted in green and maroon colors. The boat perhaps signifies the club's place of establishment; northern Kolkata, on the banks of the Ganges. The city was the capital during the later 19th century and a prime trade center of British India, and the primary mode of transportation was through the waterways.
The initial crest of the club varied much due to the lack of any requirement for logo registration, hence any club could use any logo during any tournament. Initially the club crest consisted of the picture of a Royal Bengal tiger laying either amidst a dense jungle, probably indicating the famous Sundarbans, or simply a palm tree. The crest with the tiger lying under a palm tree was used during the famous 1911 IFA Shield. A similar logo was used by another Maidan based club Rajasthan Club, which incited confusions among the locals, henceforth, in 1920s the club came up with a new logo with the iconic sailing boat.
The club's crest is used for all sporting activities other than the football division of the club. The crest for the football division of the club has changed mutatis mutandis from time to time due to ownership changes, all the while retaining the signature Green and Maroon colours and the sailboat.
After the 2020 rebranding to ATK Mohun Bagan, for the first time the football team crest did not mention the foundation year – 1889, which fueled the ongoing controversy over the ownership deal. Later, in 2023, when the football team undergo another rebrand, the new crest incorporated 1889.
Priyanath Mitra, the successor of one of the founding families' head Kirti Mitra, had the club's first green-maroon jerseys stitched by a renowned European tailoring shop, Messrs. Rankin on Old Court House Street and since then the primary colours for the home kit has ever been green and maroon. The patterns for the home kit had many variations including halves, stripes and diagonals. The away colours of the team is predominantly white with green-maroon imprints.
Note: In numerous seasons, the sponsors have varied according to the tournament the team participated in. The following list includes only the kit sponsors during the national league games.
Mohun Bagan plays most of its home matches at Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan, commonly called Salt Lake Stadium, located in the suburb of Kolkata in Bidhannagar.
A multi-purpose stadium owned by the Government of West Bengal under Youth Affairs and Sports Department, the VYBK primarily hosts football matches, apart from occasional track and field events. The stadium was built in 1984, predominately for matches like Kolkata Derby that featured attendance too huge for the grounds in Maidan to accommodate.
Before its renovation in 2011, it was the largest football stadium in the world, with a capacity of 120,000. Before the construction and opening of Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in 1989, it was the largest football stadium in the world. It is currently the fourth-largest sports stadium in Asia by capacity. The gigantic stadium features three tiers of concrete galleries with nine entry gates, including a VIP gate and 30 ramps for the spectators to reach the viewing blocks.
The Mohun Bagan Ground is a football stadium located in the Maidan region of central Kolkata, just opposite the Eden Gardens. The stadium is operated by Mohun Bagan uses it as a training ground, although in 2017 it had been used for a few of their I-League matches. The office and club tent is adjacent to the stadium.
This ground is mainly used for Calcutta Football League matches. The stadium has galleries on three sides and a rampart on the fourth side. The north side, a contemporary gallery of the stadium, having bucket seats installed, is for the members.
In 1977 Mohun Bagan became the first club in Maidan to have floodlights installed in their stadium. The floodlights operated till the mid-1990s, after which they were renovated and inaugurated on 25 February 2016 with an IFA Shield match between Mohun Bagan U19s and DSK-Liverpool Academy. After coming in as the principal investor, KGSPL renovated the stadium in the lines of Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan with artificial turf and upgraded amenities so that it can be used for practice and home matches in Indian Super League and other big tournaments as and when required.
The fans, known as Mariners, have the reputation of being very loyal and respectful of the club, whom they often consider to be a mother-like figure in their lives. They have had the distinction of the highest attendance during the club's tenure in I-League. There are several fanclubs dedicated to the club in different parts of West Bengal and beyond. Mohun Bagan had the highest average attendance with an average home crowd of 17,068 in the 2013–14 season, as per the AIFF reports. In the 2014-15 I-League season, their vocal support in away matches in Pune, Mumbai and Bengaluru was arguably unseen in Indian football until then. The Economic Times, a leading Indian newspaper, reported that the club had an average attendance of over 35,000 in their home matches, possibly an I-League record. Over 21,000 attended the league decider of the 2014-15 I-League between Mohun Bagan and Bengaluru in Bangalore, of this "...over 8,000 were away fans, traveling from as far as Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune to watch the game", noted Sunando Dhar, the CEO of I-League. Their grand reception when, by some estimates, over 200,000 fans gathered to greet the 2014-15 I-League clinching squad (on their way back to Kolkata from Bengaluru) has been dubbed as "legendary", "unparalleled" and "surreal" by the press as well as football historians. After the induction into ISL, Mohun Bagan continued its reputation of consistently high attendance, and in 2023–24 ISL created the records for highest ever total attendance in any single Indian football season, highest average attendance of the season and highest attendance in an ISL final.
In 2015 an all-female supporters' group called Lady Mariners, was established which became India's first all-female football supporter's club, and around 2016, an ultras called Mariners' Base Camp was formed with its various wings all around India to modernize fan movement through tifos, chants, slogans and pyrotechnics. The fanclubs have regularly taken part in social causes, such as holding periodic blood donation camps, distributing clothes and blankets to the poor or collecting funds and providing relief during the COVID-19 lockdown and Cyclone Amphan. In an unprecedented event, Mohun Bagan and its arch-rival East Bengal's respective fanclubs called for a unified mass protest on 18 August 2024, after the cancellation of the scheduled derby of Durand Cup on security grounds fearing a civil unrest surrounding the rape and murder incident at R.G. Kar Medical College.
Mohun Bagan fans had historically been noted for lending financial helps to the club during times of struggle. In the early 2000s, a Mohun Bagan fan mortgaged his house to raise funds for signing José Barreto. In 2013, Lt. Col. Abhishek Mukherjee donated his entire monthly salary to the financially distressed club. The passion for the club had at times been found crossing bounds, for instance, in 1975, an ardent fan named Umakanto Palodhi had infamously committed suicide and had written in his suicide note that he will be born as a Mohun Bagan footballer in the next life to take revenge for that 0–5 defeat. In 2020, a disabled fan named Tinku Das also had committed suicide for unknown reasons with the Mohun Bagan flag draped around him.
The impassioned fans of Mohun Bagan time and again has been seen expressing their love and respect for the club on various media and at numerous occasions. On 29 July 2020 (Mohun Bagan Day), Mariners abroad took an initiative to feature the club on the billboards of NASDAQ at Times Square, in order to celebrate the day during the times of pandemic when all the fans in India were under a lockdown. This made Mohun Bagan the first ever Indian sports entity to be featured on the NASDAQ billboards at Times Square. Renowned football fan couple, Pannalal and Chaitali Chatterjee, who traveled abroad to 10 FIFA World Cups to represent India's footballing passion, was quoted on a game show, "You can cut open my wrist. You will see Mohun Bagan running in my veins, and nothing will ever change that."
The takeover of KGSPL of the football division of Mohun Bagan met with a harshly negative response from the Mariners, followed by numerous protests around the city, digitally and on the streets. The supporters believed that this takeover, which was popularly termed as "the merger of ATK and Mohun Bagan" would become a mark of conclusion for their 'mother club' and its century-old legacy. Gradually as the air of doubts were cleared, the resentment thawed. However, most of the ultras continued to voice their demands with hard statements. Ultimately, the principal owner of the football team Sanjiv Goenka announced the removal of "ATK" from the team's name at the end of the season and renaming it as Mohun Bagan Super Giant officially on 1 June 2023 and i.e., how the club again got its name back.
Mohun Bagan had been backed by numerous celebrities among whom includes Hemendra Kumar Ray, Manna Dey, Jyoti Basu, R. D. Burman, Sourav Ganguly, Amitabh Bachchan, Uttam Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty and many more.
Mohun Bagan's biggest rivalry is with city rivals East Bengal, popularly known as the Kolkata Derby. The rivalry dates back to pre-independence India and trascends sports. Culturally, the rivalry has a lot of significance to the people of Kolkata. Mohun Bagan represents people existing in the western part of Bengal (known as Ghotis), while East Bengal is primarily supported by people hailing from the eastern part of pre-independence Bengal (known as Bangals).
Mohun Bagan vs East Bengal, termed as the Kolkata Derby, is the biggest derby in India and is also considered one of Asia's most heated rivalries. Matches between the two teams are often sold out. The celebrations of a derby win are traditionally marked with dishes prepared from either ilish or golda chingri, depending on which team wins. The East Bengal supporters celebrate their win with ilish courses, being associated to the eastern region of Bengal (now Bangladesh), whereas the Mohun Bagan fans celebrate with courses of golda chingri.
Till 25 February 2023, 384 matches have been played between the two teams out of which Mohun Bagan has won 127 matches and East Bengal FC have won 132 times (including all competitive matches and exhibition games) and rest of the matches ended in draws.
The first match between the sides was played on 8 August 1921 in the Coochbehar Cup, and the semifinal match ended in a 0–0 draw. Mohun Bagan won the replayed semifinal 3–0. Rabi Ganguly scored the first-ever derby goal in that match, and the other two goals were scored by Poltu Dasgupta and Abhilash Ghosh.
The first CFL match between the sides was played on 28 May 1925 in CFL, where East Bengal FC beat Mohun Bagan 1–0. Mohun Bagan holds the record of scoring the fastest goal in a derby (24 July 1976, a 17-second goal from Md Akbar of Mohun Bagan). They have the record of winning two consecutive derbies on two successive days (7 and 8 August 1935) and had the unique distinction of losing only one derby in 7 years (1933 to 1939). During this phase, they won 29 trophies. Out of 23 derbies they won 12, drew 10 and lost only 1 against their arch-rivals. It was a golden period in the history of the club.
A few notable victories include the Darbhanga Shield match on 5 September 1934, when Mohun Bagan won 4–1 (Amiya Deb scored all four goals, the only time a player scored four goals in this derby), and a 5–3 win in an I-League encounter on 25 October 2009 (Chidi Edeh scored four goals). They have won several derbies scoring four goals against East Bengal FC. One such instance was in Raja Memorial Shield final played on 6 August 1937 at the common ground of both the clubs (Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan), where Mohun Bagan beat East Bengal FC 4–0 and Asit Ganguly scored three goals in that match.
Mohun Bagan also has a significant rivalry against Mohammedan. The feud dates back to the early 1930s, when Mohammedan came out as one of the top contenders in the Calcutta Football League, winning seven titles from 1934 to 1941. After that, until 1958, all the CFL titles were won by the three rival clubs, often referred to as the Big Three of Maidan (Bengali: ময়দানের তিন প্রধান). They also competed against each other in major tournaments like Durand Cup, Rovers Cup and IFA Shield.
The rivalry had a communal background in the beginning, with Mohammedan being a Muslim-only club representing the Muslim population of Kolkata, leading to the Hindus in the city to show their support for Mohun Bagan and East Bengal despite them not having communal backgrounds. The communal tension faded by the 1960s when Mohammedan began to sign non-Muslim players regularly.
However, by then the club had lost their dominance in Indian football. After the inception of national tournaments like Federation Cup and National Football League, Mohammedan was no longer seen as an elite club as they played in the lower tiers of Indian football. Thus, the club rarely met Mohun Bagan and East Bengal at major tournaments as the latter were competing in the top tier.
After winning the 2023-24 I-League, Mohammedan was promoted to the Indian Super League and the 2024-25 will be the first time in 10 years that the three Kolkata giants will be competing in the same national league. Unlike the ever-flirting East Bengal-Mohun Bagan feud termed the Kolkata Derby, the matches including Mohammedan and Mohun Bagan or East Bengal, are commonly termed as Mini Kolkata Derby.
Presently, a consortium called RPSG Mohun Bagan Private Limited, whose 80% shares are owned by Kolkata Games and Sports Private Limited and 20% shares by Mohun Bagan Athletic Club Private Limited, jointly controls the football department of Mohun Bagan AC. RPSG Group founder and chairman Sanjiv Goenka is the principal owner of the consortium.
Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules; some limited exceptions apply. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.
Note: Only senior team players with more than 50 goals have been listed below.
Note: Data collected from 2020 ( as of 08.03.2025)
The eleven players of the 1911 IFA Shield winning team are often regarded as the Amar Ekadash (transl. Immortal Eleven).
Note: The club's competitive record only since 1996, when the first national-level league was incepted, is listed below.
All stats as per Mohun Bagan official site
Win Draw Loss
Mohun Bagan have won a record cumulative number of 262 honours in their 135 years of existence. Note: The following honours are only the AIFF certified titles that Mohun Bagan have won.
On 10 July 1911, Mohun Bagan had begun their third IFA Shield campaign. The tournament continued for the next 19 days, with Mohun Bagan eventually becoming the champions by defeating the East Yorkshire Regiment team. Thus, for the first time, a native club defeated the British and the British-Indian teams in a football tournament.
Since 2001, 29 July is celebrated as Mohun Bagan Day in honor of the club's victory over East Yorkshire Regiment in the 1911 IFA Shield Final. To commemorate the day, the club organises the seasonal award distribution ceremony and, in collaboration with various Mohun Bagan fan clubs, numerous programmes, rallies, blood donation camps, charity and exhibition matches, including an annual Shibdas Bhaduri XI v Bijoydas Bhaduri XI football match that features former retired Mohun Bagan players.