Football in Serbia

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
See also: Football in Yugoslavia
Football in Serbia
Home stadium of club Red Star Belgrade
CountrySerbia
Governing bodyFootball Association of Serbia
National team(s)Serbia national football team
First played1896
Registered players120,194
Clubs2,770
National competitions
Club competitions
International competitions

Serbian Superliga (top tier) and is responsible for appointing the management of the men's, women's, and youth national football teams in Serbia. The association also organizes the Serbian First League (second) and Serbian League
(third), operating the top 3 leagues.

The FSS is also responsible for organizing the Serbian Cup, the country's league cup competition. It has been played from the end of the 19th century and there were a number of very successful Serbian football players and coaches throughout history.

One of Serbia's top football clubs

OFK Belgrade and Radnički Niš
in the history of the Serbian football

History

Kingdom of Serbia

Football first came to

Jewish student, Hugo Buli, after he had returned from his studies in Germany, brought the first football from Berlin to Belgrade. He brought the ball to his friends from the Belgrade gymnastics society Soko, and founded the first football section in Southeast Europe on 12 May.[2]

The inaugural meeting of the First Serbian Football Society (Prvo srpsko društvo za igranje loptom) took place on 1 May 1899, at the restaurant Trgovačka kafana, at initiative of Hugo Buli, and with support of Andra Nikolić, who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Kingdom of Serbia. Feti Bey, the Turkish consul in Belgrade, was elected as President, and the lawyer Mihailo Živadinović as the Vice-President. In spring 1899, the first football field was built in the Topčider neighbourhood of Belgrade, and the first match was played in May that year between two teams of the members of the football society.[2]

Most of the first Serbian football clubs were multi-sports societies which included football sections. The first football club was founded in

Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Kragujevac was on the territory of the then kingdom of Serbia. Being still active, Bačka is the oldest club in nowadays Serbia. Just following the foundation of Šumadija, Soko was founded in Belgrade, and thus became the first football club from the capital city. Since then several other clubs were formed such as Srpski mač in 1906, BSK in 1911 and SK Velika Srbija (later renamed to SK Jugoslavija) in 1913.[4]

In spring 1914, the

First World War
and the halt of all recreational and sports activities in Serbia.

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

At the end of the

Yugoslav Football Association (Jugoslovenski nogometni savez) was founded at a meeting in Zagreb, on 18 April 1919. The founding assembly was presided 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

HŠK Građanski, dominated the state scene until the beginning of World War II
.

This period was marked by the mass popularization of football. The national league was dominated by clubs from Belgrade and Zagreb, but within Belgrade major rivalry was created between BSK and Jugoslavija (Reds and Blues respectively) creating what will be the

Bane Sekulić.[7]

The year of 1935 marked the professionalization of football in Yugoslavia, with the replacement of amateur status to the professional one, and the introduction of contracts for players.[8]

On the assembly of the Yugoslav Football Association held on October 1, 1939, a decision was made to rename the FA into Serbian Football Association, after earlier that year the FA's of Croatia and Slovenia were formed, and the delegates of Ljubljana, Osijek, Split and Zagreb subassociations decided to abandon the Yugoslav Football Association.[9]

Socialist Yugoslavia

The end of the war was the beginning of the reconstruction, and the devastated football grounds and stadiums, as well as the football clubs needed to be restored.

Radnički Kragujevac
.

Contemporary period

After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and the separation of

2007 UEFA Under-21 Championship having lost to the Netherlands in the final. As well, Serbia won the U-20
World Cup in 2015 in New Zealand.

Competitions

Main article: Serbian football league system

The governing body of football in Serbia is the Football Association of Serbia. It oversees the organization of:

Note: the aforementioned competitions are for men if not stated differently. Women's football exists but is much less developed or popular.

Teams

Main articles: List of football clubs in Serbia and List of football clubs in Vojvodina

By far the two most popular clubs in the country are

Crvena zvezda, both from Belgrade
.

Player of the Year

The Serbian Footballer of the Year award is an annual award given from the Football Association of Serbia to the best player of the year.

Football stadiums in Serbia

Stadiums with a capacity of 20,000 or higher are included.

Main article: List of football stadiums in Serbia
Image Stadium Seating capacity City Home team Notes
Rajko Mitić Stadium 55,568[11] Belgrade Crvena Zvezda UEFA Category 4 stadium
Partizan Stadium 29,775[12] Belgrade Partizan Belgrade UEFA Category 3 stadium

References

  1. ISBN 9780141911540
    . Retrieved 13 April 2018 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ a b Fudbal u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, Milorad Sijić, pg. 3
  3. ^ Lisica, Admir. "Fudbalski misionari doveli igru na Balkan prije 120 godina". balkans.aljazeera.net (in Bosnian). Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  4. ^ Fudbal u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, Milorad Sijić, pg. 4
  5. ^ "Srbislav Todorović: "Football in Serbia 1896 - 1918", pg. 60" (in Serbian). Ofkbeograd.net. Archived from the original on 2012-05-12. Retrieved 2012-09-11.
  6. ^ "The disintegration of Yugoslavia and football". University of Iowa. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
  7. ^ Fudbal u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, Milorad Sijić, pag. 6
  8. ^ Fudbal u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, Milorad Sijić, pag. 18
  9. ^ Fudbal u Kraljevini Jugoslaviji, Milorad Sijić, pags. 25 and 26
  10. ^ "The disintegration of Yugoslavia and football". University of Iowa. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  11. ^ "Dom Crvene zvezde". crvenazvezdafk.com. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  12. ^ "STADIUM". partizan.rs. Retrieved 14 April 2020.

External links

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