Abahani

Sheikh Kamal reorganised a club called Iqbal Sporting Club at the start of 1972, renaming it Abahani Krira Chakra. The club converted into a limited company seventeen years later, becoming Abahani Limited Dhaka.

Through the pre-professional era Abahani won the Dhaka Senior Division League between 1974 and 2001, and once the Bangladesh Premier League began in 2007 they added six more championships. Domestic cups followed the same pattern: twelve Federation Cup wins and two Independence Cups.

Their meetings, known as the Dhaka Derby, carry the weight of the biggest fixture in Bangladeshi football, and in 1982 that intensity spilled over: four Abahani players, including Kazi Salahuddin, were imprisoned after protesting a referee's decision in a derby match, an episode remembered as "Black September".

Abahani carried that identity abroad too, becoming the first Bangladeshi club to enter the Asian Club Championship, in 1985-86, and reaching the Inter-Zone semi-finals of the AFC Cup in 2019 before North Korea's 4.25 SC eliminated them on aggregate.

Mohammad Ridoy captains the side now, in the sky blue that gives the club its nickname, the Sky Blue Brigade. Their matches are played at the Shaheed Dhirendranath Datta Stadium, which holds 18,000, though the National Stadium has also hosted them when Dhaka's biggest occasions demanded more room.