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1939–40 Yugoslav Football Championship

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Season
  
1939–40

Champion
  
HŠK Građanski Zagreb

Matches played
  
30

Start date
  
1939

Goals scored
  
111

Top goalscorer
  
Svetislav Glišović (10)

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1938–39 Yugoslav Football Championship

The 1939–40 Yugoslav Football Championship (Serbo-Croato-Slovenian: Državno prvenstvo 1939/40 / Државно првенство 1939/40) was the 17th, and last, season of Kingdom of Yugoslavia's premier football competition. The season lasted from May 2 to June 19, 1940.

Contents

The league played a contracted season. In 1939, as the Second World War began in parts of Europe, Croatian and Slovenian clubs began leaving the Football Association of Yugoslavia and joining the Croatian Football Federation, in protest of the supposed sports' centralization among Serbs in Belgrade.

The league included now two separate leagues which would function as qualificational leagues for the final stage, the Serbian Football League and the Croatian-Slovenian Football League. The top three clubs from each league will qualify for the final stage of the Yugoslav Championship. The Croatian-Slovenian League was formed by the clubs of the newly formed Banovina of Croatia and the Drava Banovina (corresponding to Slovenia and who´s only participant was NK Ljubljana), while the Serbian League was formed by the rest of the Banovinas, namely the Danube, Drina, Morava, Vardar, Vrbas and Zeta ones. BSK, Slavija and Jugoslavija qualified through the Serbian one, while Građanski, Hajduk and HAŠK through the Croatian-Slovenian. At the end of the season Građanski won the national title. The Yugoslav First League continued on, soon to be renamed the Serbian First League. The split was eventually rectified with the promise of more representation for Croats and Slovenes, with the national football association being restructured as the Supreme Football Association of Yugoslavia. A short, ten-game season was played.

Having been invaded by the Axis Powers on April 6, 1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was dismembered and this would be the last Yugoslav Championship. In 1940 the qualifiers for the Yugoslav Championship were played split in three qualifying leagues, the Serbian League and, instead of the Croato-Slovenian there was now a separate Croatian and Slovenian League. The three leagues were supposed to be the qualifiers for the 1940–41 Yugoslav Championship, however the championship was never played. Instead, the 1940–41 Croatian First League became the national championship of the newly created Nazi puppet state Independent State of Croatia (NDH), which enjoyed peace per se as an Axis member and continued to hold national competitions until 1944, while the Serbian Football League became the national championship of the occupied Serbia.

In 1946, the Yugoslav First League was reestablished.

Qualifiers for the final stage

  • 1939–40 Serbian Football League
  • 1939–40 Croato-Slovenian Football League
  • League table of the final stage

    Source: rsssf.com
    Rules for classification: 1st points; 2nd goal average
    (C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (E) = Eliminated; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round.
    Only applicable when the season is not finished:
    (Q) = Qualified to the phase of tournament indicated; (TQ) = Qualified to tournament, but not yet to the particular phase indicated; (RQ) = Qualified to the relegation tournament indicated; (DQ) = Disqualified from tournament.

    Top scorers

    Final goalscoring position, number of goals, player/players and club.

  • 1 - 10 goals - Svetislav Glišović (BSK Belgrade)
  • 2 - 9 goals - August Lešnik (Građanski Zagreb), Aleksandar Petrović (Jugoslavija)
  • Champions

    Građanski Zagreb (manager: Marton Bukovi)

    Emil Urch
    Miroslav Brozović
    Ivan Jazbinšek
    Zvonimir Cimermančić
    Svetozar Đanić
    Ivan Belošević
    August Lešnik
    Milan Antolković
    Florijan Matekalo
    Drago Žalant
    Mirko Kokotović

    Results

    Updated to games played on 19 June 1940.
    Source:
    ^ The home team is listed in the left-hand column.
    Colours: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.

    References

    1939–40 Yugoslav Football Championship Wikipedia