Santo Domingo

The closest this club ever came to a genuine national title was a penalty shootout in 2022, when it still played as Club Vargas Torres. The team reached the final of the Segunda Categoría de Ecuador and let it slip against Cuniburo from twelve yards. That defeat followed three provincial championships in the Segunda Categoría de Esmeraldas, won in 2019, 2021 and 2022, with runner-up finishes either side of that run, in 2013 and 2020.

None of that history stayed in Esmeraldas. By 2025 the club owed roughly $600,000, a figure built from a $75,000 FIFA sanction, unpaid debts to the state pension body IESS and a string of court claims, and a broadcasting contract with GolTV had just been torn up, costing a further $400,000. The owners sold. Investors from Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas took over, LigaPro and the Ecuadorian federation signed off on the move on 27 March 2025, and the club packed up for a new city. Since 2026 it has carried a new name, Sociedad Deportivo Santo Domingo, though supporters know it as The Red Team, for the red and green shirts that made the trip with it.

Results have been mixed since the switch. A 2-0 win over Primero de Mayo in April gave way to a 0-2 defeat to Independiente del Valle in July, both played at the Estadio Etho Vega, the 10,172-seat ground the club now calls home. Juan Manuel Llop, an Argentine who has coached both Barcelona SC and Newell's Old Boys, took charge for the move.

The club itself dates back to 15 March 1983, founded in Esmeraldas under the name it carried for four decades before the sale.