Popayan

The closest professional football in Popayán came to promotion was in 2011, when the club playing out of Estadio Ciro López reached the final of the Primera B Finalización tournament and ran into Deportivo Pasto. The team had arrived in the city only that year, relocated from Villavicencio, where it had played as Centauros; in Popayán it took the name Universitario. Pasto won the final, and Universitario stayed in the second division rather than stepping up to Categoría Primera A.

Professional football had already had a false start in the city before that. Real Popayán — formally Dimerco Real Popayán Fútbol Club — was founded in 2002 and spent two seasons in Primera B, finishing sixth overall in 2003 and reaching the group stage that decided who went up. It was not enough to keep the licence in Popayán: in 2004 that same slot became a new club, Valledupar Fútbol Club, and Real Popayán ceased to exist.

Universitario carried the city's colours for longer, staying in Primera B through to 2019. Its record scorer was Feiver Mercado, who finished with 35 goals for the club, more than anyone else managed in its history. Defender Julián Pretel, who had come through at Independiente Medellín, and midfielder Harold Balanta, who broke into the side in 2016 after time in Colombia's youth ranks, also passed through the squad. Estadio Ciro López, listed at 5,000 capacity, was home to all of it.

When Universitario dropped out of Primera B in 2019, the licence moved again, this time out of Popayán altogether, resurfacing in Cali as Boca Juniors de Cali. What remains in the city is an amateur side, Real Atlético Popayán, with no formal link to any of the professional clubs that came before it — among them the one that pushed Deportivo Pasto all the way in that 2011 final.