Football in Serbia - History

History

Football first came to Serbia in the spring of 1896 when Jewish student Hugo Buli, after he returned from his studies in Germany, brought the first football to Belgrade. He brought the ball to his friends from the Belgrade gymnastics society Soko, and founded the football section on 12 May.

The inaugural meeting of the Serbian Football Society took place on 1 May 1899, at the restaurant "Trgovačka kafana", at initiative of Mr. Hugo Buli, and with support of Mr. Andra Nikolić, who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Kingdom of Serbia. Mr. Feti Bey, the Turkish consul in Belgrade was elected as President, and the lawyer Mr. Mihailo Živadinović as the Vice-President.
The first football club was founded in the beginning of the 20th century. On 3 May 1901 in Subotica the Sports Athletic Club Bačka was founded. More than two years later, notably on 14 September 1903, the football club Šumadija was founded in Kragujevac. It is obvious that the Subotica club was older, however, at the time of the foundation of "Bačka", the city of Subotica was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Kragujevac, however, was on the territory of Serbia. Therefore "Bačka" is the oldest club in Serbia, and "Šumadija" the oldest Serbian club.
The national team of Serbia has played its first match on 19 May 1911, against Zagreb's club HAŠK and lost by 0:8. The next day, on 20 May, against the same team they played the second match, which they also lost, by 0:6. The newspapers from Zagreb reported from these matches with credits to the Serbian team for its efforts and braveness to challenge the better and experienced rival. The Serbian newspapers already then showed that the Serbian public does not easily accept defeat, showing great criticism.

On club level, despite an absence of a real championship, the fact is that at that the public and the press had a the perception about the best club in each period having in mind the number of matches and the results, and it was usual to acknowledge which was the title holder (named in the press by using the German expression "Meister Maschaft") and who were the pretenders. In spring of 1914 the Serbian Olympic Committee organised the first ever trophy to be played among the best football clubs of the Kingdom of Serbia. It was played in a single-round bobin system, and in the final held in Belgrade it was won by SK Velika Srbija. This seemed to be a promising start of an organised football tournament to be held regularly, however later that same year the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war against Serbia in what will be the beginning of the First World War and the hault of all recreational and sports activities in Serbia.

At the end of the First World War the boundaries in the region were changed and the Serbian state already joined by the Kingdom of Montenegro was united with other south-Slavic inhabited territories of Austro-Hungary to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later in 1929 renamed into Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav Football Association ("Jugoslovenski nogometni savez") was founded at a meeting in Zagreb, on 18 April 1919. The founding assembly was presided by Mr. Danilo Stojanović, popularly known as "Čika Dača", important because he was the founder of several football clubs such as Šumadija, BSK and others.
In 1919 the Belgrade Football Subassociation formed the first league tournament that had two editions (1919–20 and 1920–21 Serbian Football Championship), however, the first state championship was launched in 1923. The championships were played until 1940, and in this period the best Serbian clubs won seven state championship titles: BSK five and SK Jugoslavija two. The interruption of the championship occurred due to disagreements between the sub-associations, which culminated in 1929 when the YFA Assembly was dissolved. The differences were resolved in February 1930, after three months of crisis. An extraordinary Assembly was convened, and it took place in Zagreb on 16 May 1930. It was voted that the association's headquarters be moved to the state capital, Belgrade, and that the name of the association would be changed into Yugoslav Football Association ("Fudbalski savez Jugoslavije").

BSK, along with HŠK Građanski, dominated the state scene until the beginning of World War II. The end of the war was the beginning of the reconstruction, and the devastated football grounds and stadia, as well as the football clubs needed to be restored. On 25 February 1945, the football club Metalac was founded, later its name was changed into BSK, and then into OFK Beograd, as successor to the tradition of the pre-war Beogradski Sport Klub (BSK). The Red Star Belgrade (FK Crvena Zvezda) was formed on 4 March 1945, and FK Partizan on 4 October of the same year. Some clubs were disbanded by the new socialist authorities, many on the ideological basis, for being considered too cosmopolitan and representative of the abolished monarchy, such as Jugoslavija or Jedinstvo Beograd, and some had simply disappeared due to man loss and long inactivity during the war. Some clubs were initially disbanded but shortly after, restored, the BASK case being the most evident, while a few top league clubs had continued their activity, as FK Vojvodina, RFK Novi Sad, FK Mačva Šabac and FK Radnički Kragujevac.

After the dissolution of the federation, and the separation of Montenegro, on 26 June 2006, the Football Association of Serbia was admitted to the membership of FIFA and UEFA, as legal successor to all the previous national associations whose part it was. By this the world and European federations have acknowledged the continuity of football in the territory of Serbia, and the decisive role of Serbia in creating the history of the game in Western Balkans since the end of 19th century. In recent years, many top Serbian players such as Dejan Stanković and Nemanja Vidić have gone on to forge successful careers in top European leagues. The U-21 team were runners-up at the 2007 UEFA Under-21 Championship having lost to the Netherlands in the final.