The Serbian football champions indicates all past winners of the top-tier football leagues in which clubs from Serbian were inserted in. It includes the Serbian SuperLiga and chronologically all the predecessor leagues. Serbia is considered by FIFA and UEFA to be the only official successor of both the Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro national teams, and competitionsHistory at FSS official website, Retrieved 4 October 2012 Serbia at FIFA official websiteNews: Serbia at UEFA official website, published 1 January 2011, Retrieved 4 October 2012
History Football first came to Kingdom of Serbia in the late 1890s but the first organised championships started being played after 1918, when the country was already part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. They were organised by the Serbian Football Association and had two editions: 1919-20 and 1920-21. In the meantime in Croatia a separate league was also being played, and all agreed to begin with a Yugoslav National Championship in 1923.
The Yugoslav Football Championship was played until the beginning of the Second World War. The only interruption happened in 1929 due to disagreements between the sub-associations of Belgrade and Zagreb when the Yugoslav Football Association Assembly was dissolved. Its last edition before the war was the 1939–40 season. In the following season and during the war, a separate Serbian and Croatian leagues were played.
At the end of the war the new authorities formed, disbanded and renamed numerous clubs, and the first season, the 1945 Yugoslav Football Tournament, was played by representative teams, instead of clubs, however, since the 1946–47, the old league model played between the top national clubs was restored. The Yugoslav First League was played without interruptions, being the top league of the Socialist Yugoslavia. However, the league suffered changes with the breaking-up of the country by the early 1990s. The last season in which the clubs from Croatia and Slovenia competed was the 1990–91. The following season, 1991–92 was the last in which clubs from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia competed. All these 4 former Yugoslav Republics became independent, and they formed their own separate football leagues.
The league was named, just as the country, to First League of FR Yugoslavia and was formed of clubs from Serbia and Montenegro, although a club from Bosnia, FK Borac Banja Luka kept on playing in the FR Yugoslav league system. As the country changed its name again in 2003, the league was renamed to First League of Serbia and Montenegro. In 2006 Montenegro declared independence, so Montenegrin clubs formed their own league, leaving the newly named SuperLiga formed only with clubs from Serbia.
Champions and statistics Unofficial champions of Serbia Despite an absence of a real championship, the fact is that at that the public and the press had a clear perception about the best club in each period. This was archived by the number of matches and the results of the clubs, and the press had an easy way of distinguishing about who was the best team, or title holder (named in the press by using the German expression "Meister Manschaft") and who were the pretenders.Srbislav Todorović: "Football in Serbia 1896 - 1918" , pp. 32-34,
Period Champions 1903–1907 SK Soko Beograd 1907–1911 Šumadija Kragujevac 1911–1912 BSK Beograd 1912 Srpski mač 1912 BSK Beograd 1913–1914 SK Soko Beograd 1914–1918 Srpski mač
Serbian Olympic Cup 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 robin system, and it was won in the final held in Belgrade by SK Velika Srbija.Srbislav Todorović: "Football in Serbia 1896 - 1918" , p. 60,
This seemed to be a promising start of an organised football tournament to be held regularly, however later that same year, the Assassination in Sarajevo of the Austrian Prince Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian revolutionary opposing the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, led to the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war against Serbia. The consequence of this event was the beginning of the First World War in which Serbia will suffer major human losses and which completely put in hold the development of sport activities in the kingdom.
Season Format Champions Runners up Top scorer(s) Goals 1914Cup(Single round-robin) Velika Srbija Šumadija Kragujevac
Serbian Football Championship At the end of the First World War in 1918, and with the victory of Serbia and the rest of the Allies, the country suffered major territorial changes. Already before the war Serbia included what is the present-day territory of North Macedonia. In October 1918, Syrmia, Vojvodina and the Kingdom of Montenegro unite with Serbia, and finally, in November, the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, a shortly lived state formed by the South Slavic inhabited territories of the now dismembered Austro-Hungary, joins as well. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is proclaimed in Belgrade under the Karađorđević dynasty and is considered a legal successor of the Kingdom of Serbia.
This new enlarged territory composing now different ethnicities and in which football presented different levels of development in different areas, presented a real challenge for a unified football championship to be organised. The possibility that arise was that each of the subassociations starts developing their own internal competitions. The Belgrade Football Subassociation created a first tournament in which the final-phase will be played in 1920 and which had the participation of the clubs from the territory covering what was the former Kingdom of Serbia, Vojvodina and the Semberija region, which nowadays corresponds to the north eastern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It held two editions and both of them were won by BSK Belgrade.Yugoslavia/Serbia (and Montenegro) - List of Champions at RSSSF
Season Format Champions Runners up Top scorer(s) Goals 1919-20League(One round-robin; 5 clubs) BSK Beograd Jugoslavija Beograd 1920-21League(Double round-robin; 6 clubs) BSK Beograd Jugoslavija Beograd 1921-22League(One round-robin; 9 clubs) Jugoslavija Beograd Vardar Beograd
Yugoslav Football Championship
This period was dominated by two clubs, Serbian BSK and Croatian Građanski, both of which won 5 titles each. They were followed by Croatian side Hajduk Split, and Serbian side Jugoslavija, each with 2 titles. Beside them, Croatian clubs Concordia and HAŠK won one championship. Geographically, Belgrade and Zagreb dominated this period with 7 titles each, with Split taking one.
In total, the title won by Hajduk Split made the difference, making Croatian teams to win one more title than Serbian ones, with Croatia having 8 titles, and Serbia 7. This was no surprise, as football in Croatia had been slightly more developed, as it has been introduced earlier than in Serbia, while Zagreb and Split were still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, known at that time as the Central European school, the worldwide avant-garde of football. In comparison, football in Serbia was introduced a bit latter, mostly brought by students coming from Austro-Hungarian urban centers like Vienna, Budapest, Prague or Zagreb where football was already developed as sport. Despite that fact, the period was marked by the immediate appearance of a growing rivalry between Croatian and Serbian clubs as soon as the championship on national level begin in 1923.
Although initially on continental level the Yugoslav clubs had been generally inferior in their clashes against stronger Central European clubs in the Mitropa Cup, usually being eliminated in the first rounds, by the late 1930s Građanski and BSK managed to make better performances reaching intermediate stages of the competition.
Because initially Zagreb was a more developed city regarding football organisation, the Yugoslav Football Association was formed there in 1919, however as Belgrade was the country capital, the FA moved in 1930 after major insistence from Belgrade Football Subassociation. This led to the boycott on behalf of Zagreb Football Subassociation which then refused to send their players, which were the majority in the national team prior to that event, to represent Yugoslavia at the 1930 FIFA World Cup. Even so, the national team, formed only with domestic players playing in Belgrade-based clubs impressed by reaching the semi-finals, thus making the first major result for the national team at international level.
Regarding players in the league, Serbian clubs dominated in the top-scorer statistic, with the season top-scorer playing on 11 out of 17 occasions in a Serbian club, with the other 6 being players from Croatian-based clubs. This period was also marked by the fact that most major clubs made an effort to bring experienced foreign coaches (some were even coaches/players) mostly from Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and England. There was also a number of foreign players, mostly from Central European countries who were initially more technically and tactically skilled, although domestic players progressively substantially improved their quality with time. In 1924 BSK brought the first foreign professional footballers when they brought Rudolf Wetzer and Dezideriu Laki from Romania.50. godina BFS, page 37
Season Format Champions Runners up Top scorer(s) Goals 1923Cup tournament(Single round-robin; 6 clubs) Građanski Zagreb SAŠK SarajevoDragan Jovanović(Jugoslavija Beograd) 4 1924Cup tournament(Single round-robin; 7 clubs) Jugoslavija Beograd Hajduk SplitDragan Jovanović(Jugoslavija Beograd) 6 1925Cup tournament(Single round-robin; 7 clubs) Jugoslavija Beograd Građanski ZagrebDragan Jovanović(Jugoslavija Beograd) 4 1926Cup tournament(Single round-robin; 7 clubs) Građanski Zagreb Jugoslavija BeogradDušan Petković(Jugoslavija Beograd) 4 1927League(Single round-robin; 6 clubs) Hajduk Split BSK BeogradKuzman Sotirović(BSK Beograd) 6 1928League(Single round-robin; 6 clubs) Građanski Zagreb Hajduk SplitLjubo Benčić(Hajduk Split) 8 1929League(Double round-robin; 5 clubs) Hajduk Split BSK BeogradĐorđe Vujadinović(BSK Beograd) 10 1930League(Double round-robin; 6 clubs) Concordia Zagreb Jugoslavija Beograd Blagoje Marjanović(BSK Beograd) 10 1930–31League(Double round-robin; 6 clubs) BSK Beograd Concordia ZagrebĐorđe Vujadinović(BSK Beograd) 12 1931–32Cup tournament(Double round-robin; 8 clubs) Concordia Zagreb Hajduk SplitSvetislav Valjarević(Concordia Zagreb) 10 1932–33League(Double round-robin; 11 clubs) BSK Beograd Hajduk SplitVladimir Kragić(Hajduk Split) 21 1933–34National championship was not played. 1934–35League(Double round-robin; 10 clubs) BSK Beograd Jugoslavija BeogradLeo Lemešić(Hajduk Split) 18 1935–36Cup tournament(Double round-robin; 14 clubs) BSK Beograd Slavija SarajevoBlagoje Marjanović(BSK Beograd) 5 1936–37League(Double round-robin; 10 clubs) Građanski Zagreb Hajduk SplitBlagoje Marjanović(BSK Beograd) 21 1937–38League(Double round-robin; 10 clubs) HAŠK Zagreb BSK BeogradAugust Lešnik(Građanski Zagreb) 17 1938–39League(Double round-robin; 12 clubs) BSK Beograd Građanski ZagrebAugust Lešnik(Građanski Zagreb) 22 1939–40LeagueThe league had a contracted season. In 1939, Croatian and Slovenian clubs began leaving the Yugoslav Football Association and joining the newly found Croatian Football Federation, in protest of the alleged centralization of sport around Belgrade. A new Croatian-Slovenian Football League was started, while the Yugoslavian First League continued on, soon to be renamed the Serbian First League. The split was eventually rectified with the promise of an increase in the number of Croatian and Slovenian clubs in the league. In the end, a short ten-round season was held.(Double round-robin; 6 clubs) Građanski Zagreb BSK BeogradSvetislav Glišović(BSK Beograd) 10
Serbian League