Idrottsföreningen Kamraterna i Helsingfors was formed on 15 October 1897 by Georges Doubitsky, a 15-year-old student at the Svenska Reallyceum school in Helsinki.

HIFK won their first Finnish championship (Mestaruussarja) in 1930 a feat that they were to repeat on three other occasions in 1931, 1933 and 1937 in a brilliant decade for the club.

HIFK was one of the most successful football sides in Finland until the early 1970s, when the team were relegated from the Mestaruussarja (Finnish Premier League).

[2] However, the club overstretched themselves which resulted in the withdrawal from the Ykkönen at the end of the 2002 season and taking the place of the second team in the Nelonen (Fourth Division) in 2003.

During his second term they returned to the Ykkönen for a third time within the century, when they beat PS Kemi Kings in the promotion playoffs.

HIFK won Ykkönen in 2014, and therefore were automatically promoted into the highest tier of Finnish football, Veikkausliiga.

After securing promotion, HIFK announced that they would play their 2015 season home games at the Telia 5G -areena, the ground which belonged to their local rivals HJK Helsinki.

During the 2022 and 2023 seasons, the club had repeatedly financial problems, and had several fund raising campaigns to be able to continue its first team's actions.

[12] On 4 January 2024, after the club finished 6th in the second-tier 2023 Ykkönen, HIFK Fotboll Ab, the limited liability company under which the men's first team operated since 2012, filed for bankruptcy.

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