Deportivo Wanka

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Deportivo Wanka

Full name

Club Deportivo Wanka

Nickname(s)

"Los Verdes"

Founded

1996

Ground

Estadio Huancayo,
Huancayo
(Capacity 15,000)

Chairman

Alfonso Miranda

League

Copa Perú

2006





Home colours





Away colours

Deportivo Wanka is a Peruvian football club, based in the city of Huancayo in the Peruvian Andes. It was founded in 1996^[1] and is named after the Wankas people who formerly inhabited the area and after whom the city of Huancayo is named.

Wanka's strip

In 2000 it merged with Deportivo Pesquero (formerly Deportivo Sipesa) from Chimbote, which gave it access to the Primera División Peruana, playing in Huancayo and under the Wanka name.

The team aroused controversy in 2004 when it moved its base to Cerro de Pasco, the highest city in the world and almost certainly the world's highest venue for professional football, at an altitude of 4,380 m (13,973 ft) above sea level, well above the point where altitude sickness becomes a problem. Its opponents criticised the move as an attempt to stave off relegation by playing in conditions that no other team could tolerate, including hail, rain, near-freezing temperatures and a lack of oxygen from the high altitude. The club was relegated that season anyway.

In 2006, it emerged that Deportivo Wanka strips had become a cult collectible item for British football fans, with over 1,000 strips selling in the space of a few weeks. The British slang word wanker "one who masturbates", sounds like Wanka when said with a (non-rhotic) British accent. The Sun quoted a club spokesman as saying that "It is very strange. Everyone in Britain seems to think we have a funny name."