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.
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.
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.
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.
[7] 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.
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.
[7] During that season, 1940–41, the Serbian League included the clubs from the Subassociations of Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica, Zrenjanin, Kragujevac, Niš, Skoplje, Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Cetinje,[10] which territorially comprised all of current-day Serbia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and a minor portion of the Eastern part of Slavonia, along the Danube River, nowadays in Croatia.
SK Jugoslavija stadium and its property, just as most of its players, will be attributed to the newly formed Red Star Belgrade which was unofficially the club of the Ministry of Interior.
[7] Domestically, football provided entertainment for millions, and it developed into an industry that, like the rest of the economy, exhibited many of the traits of the capitalist West, alongside the unique features of the Yugoslav self-menagment socialism.
In the first post war season, in 1945, a league was played based on teams representing Republics, where SR Serbia won the title.
By city, Belgrade based clubs took 30 titles, in second place was Split with 7, third Zagreb with 4, fourth Sarajevo with 3 and finally Novi Sad with 2.
Hajduk Split, OFK Belgrade and Radnički Niš also made impressive results by reaching the semi-finals in European competitions.
Beside this, in this period the Mitropa Cup was won by Red Star (2x 1958 and 1968), Čelik Zenica (2x 1971 and 1972), Vojvodina (1977), Partizan (1978), Iskra Bugojno (1985) and Borac Banja Luka (1992).
The national team greatly benefited from it, with Yugoslavia making numerous appearances at World and European final phases.
The player with most appearances for the national team was the Serb Dragan Džajić, a Red Star legend, and among the top 10 topscorers in the First League between 1946 and 1996, 8 of them played in Serbian clubs, with the all-time league top-scorer being a Serb Slobodan Santrač who represented all Belgrade-based clubs: OFK Beograd, Partizan and Galenika Zemun.
This specially became notorious during the 1980s when Red Star established a hegemonic position by acquiring the most talented footballers from other teams in the country.
Then some top-level clubs started importing players, mostly from neighbouring countries, but also from Australia, Africa and Latin and North America.
The tournament consisted of eight teams; Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Vojvodina, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a selection of JNA players.
Football had just been experiencing its peak, with Red Star having just been European and World champions in 1991, the league being highly competitive with intense domestic and even foreign media coverage and with crowded stadiums; there was an outburst of numerous talented players, the golden generation that had won the youth world championship in 1987 was reaching its mature age, the national team easily qualified to the 1992 European Championship and was considered among some as favourite after the impressive display in the 1990 FIFA World Cup where ended eliminated in the quarter-finals in a penalty-shoutout against Argentina, and one-by-one all these advantages were turned apart.
Stadiums provided space where footballers and spectators could challenge the status quo of the regime, and served as the backdrop to violent clashes of incompatible nationalist visions.
[7] With the death of Tito a decade earlier, the federation managed to stay united until the democratic elections were introduced, in which many of the politicians opted for forming parties with ethnical platforms, instead of ideological ones.
This meant that an entire generation of players, some of which had become World champions, could not make their contribution to the national team during their most productive years.
The strongest clubs, which had become a magnet for the best players in the region earlier, were now seeing their talents being obligated to move abroad in order to make an active career.
The clubs from Montenegro stayed in the league system, along with FK Borac Banja Luka, which, because of the Bosnian War, had moved its team to Serbia.
A year later, a new low-point in Serbian football came, when in March 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia began, which interrupted the 1998–99 season which was abandoned and not retaken, as the War lasted for almost 3 months.
At the beginning of the new millennium domestic football started experiencing slowly a revival, with new generations of players being formed inspired by the now veterans which had, despite all, impressive careers.
Domestically, this period was marked by the intense rivalry between Partizan and Red Star, the Eternal derby, which became the highlight of Serbian club football.
Unfortunately, since the stabilization of the political situation, the export of quality players has not diminished as the war period had turned it into a particularly attractive and profitable business for managers and others involved, who simply kept, and even further developed, this lucrative activity.