Club Universitario de Deportes

Club Universitario de Deportes
NicknamesLos Cremas (The Creams)
Los Merengues
Las Gallinas
Founded1924
StadiumEstadio Monumental "U"
CEOÁlvaro Barco
ManagerJavier Rabanal
LeagueLiga 1
2025Liga 1, 1st of 19
Websiteuniversitario.pe

The Club Universitario de Deportes is a Peru football team, popularly known as Universitario, has competed in the top tier of Peruvian football, the Liga 1, since 1928. They are the most successful team in Peruvian football with 29 titles and have never been relegated. The club was founded on 7 August 1924 under the name Federación Universitaria by students of the National University of San Marcos but was forced to rename it in 1931.

The club won its first Peruvian title in 1929, one year after its debut in the first division. The club won its first double in the 1945 and 1946 seasons and won its first treble after conquering the 2000 season. Since then, Universitario has won twenty-nine first-division titles and was the first Peruvian club, and the Pacific, to reach the final of the Copa Libertadores in 1972. Universitario is one of the two most popular teams in Peru. Universitario's youth team is U América FC which currently participates in the Copa Perú. According to the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, an international organization recognized by FIFA, Universitario was the best Peruvian club of the 20th century and the 28th most successful in South America.

In the year 2000, they opened the 80,093-seat Estadio Monumental, currently the largest stadium in Peru and second-largest in South America, retiring their smaller Estadio Teodoro Lolo Fernández which was converted to a public training ground used by the club and the reserve team.

Universitario and Alianza Lima participate in the Peruvian Clásico, which has its roots in the club's first participation in the Peruvian Primera División in 1928. The rivalry is among the fiercest on the continent and is the oldest and largest rivalry in Peru. It also has rivalries with Sporting Cristal, Deportivo Municipal, and Sport Boys.

Universitario has the most important soccer infrastructure in Peru, with Estadio Monumental, Lolo Fernández and Campo Mar as venues to train and practice not just football but a variety of other sports.

Along with a men's football team, Universitario has a volleyball, futsal (indoor football), and women's football team. It also has a women's and men's football reserves team.