The island league was founded in 1938 and is the oldest and existing association in Cape Verde. In the founding years, the league formerly included much of the Barlavento Islands, when more clubs were created even the other islands, it reduced the area to only the northwestern and then the northwestcentral part of the country. None of the clubs outside the island participated in the island division before their island divisions were created. In its first three seasons, only a single match existed, Académica and GD Amarantes were founded later and the number of clubs risen to four. The two island competitions were the highest level local championship in Cape Verde. The island had the second largest championships in the country in 1953 which lasted to the late 2000s. The 1953 island champion who was Académica would compete in the first colonial championship and claimed the first colonial title. The only entrant was a club from the island of São Vicente up to the end of colonial rule. Some clubs were created years later including Castilho and Falcões do Norte in the 1960s and increased its clubs to six, the points system was introduced and featured a ten-match season that started in the early of the year. After Batuque was founded, the club number rise to eight and nine in around 1990 after Corinthians who was the first Brazilian based club on the island was founded in 1988, it started a sixteen match season and had a two-year season. In 1999, the São Vicente Opening Tournament was founded, later in 2001 the São Vicente Cup was founded and in 2004, its Super Cup competitions were founded. In 2007, the Opening Tournament became labelled as the Association Cup. In 2009, the Association Cup would have two divisions featuring clubs that also feature in a division of the championships. After Santiago Island League South or Fogo, it would be the next league to have a second division in 2008. Once the clubs were only around Mindelo and was the remaining one in Cape Verde, a few clubs were added and are based in other parts of the island including Calhau in the east, Salamansa in the north and São Pedro in the southwest. Also Corinthians São Vicente competed in that division for the first time. Recently of club participations in the Premier Division, since May 8, 2016, only four are unrelegated and are Mindelense, Batuque, Derby and Falcões do Norte. Calhau, Corinthians and São Pedro are the only clubs who appeared only in the Second Division. Between the late 2000s and 2015, the Championship had the third largest number of clubs, currently the League has the fourth most number of clubs in the country.
