1939–40 Yugoslav Football Championship

1939–40 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.
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 qualifying 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 whose 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
Results
Winning squad
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)
See also
Yugoslav Cup
Yugoslav League Championship
Football Association of Yugoslavia
References
External links
Yugoslavia Domestic Football Full Tables
Yugoslav Football Championship
Yugo
1939–40 in Yugoslav football