Yugoslavia – ranked 8th. Weird championship, sygnaling the coming of new era in which playing was secondary. Who won this championship? It depends… there was one final table, followed by another. This championship ended in court and decision of a judge changed final positions already recognized by UEFA.Thus, today there are 2 final tables and depending to local fanaticism – two champions. All started with infringement of rules of fair play, leading to penalties given by the Yugoslavian Federation: Partizan (Belgrade), Crvena zvezda (Belgrade), Velez (Mostar), Rijeka (Rijeka), Dinamo (Zagreb), Buducnost (Titograd), Zeljeznicar (Sarajevo), Sutjeska (Niksic), Celik (Zenica), and FK Sarajevo (Sarajevo) had 6 points deducted. Severe punishment of more than half of the league suggests wide-spread violation of rules, most likely bribery and match-fixing, but the guilty decided to fight the Federation in court – at least some of them. And they won in court, the deducted points were restored. But that was quite after the end of teh season, which had official final table and according to which the Yugoslav participnats in the European club tournaments were already submitted to UEFA and recignized by UEFA. The new final table after the court decision was different – the first champion was stripped from the title and there was problem with one of the relegated teams. At the end, it looked like the mighty got their way and the smaller clubs, having nothing to do with the wide-spread violations of rules were… punished. There is bitter tast, still hurting. Justice was violated so much, there is no way to take sides – the guilty became innocent, the innocent were punished, a whole new avenue was opened: if you cannot win on the field, you can go to court and prevail. Why play the game at all? It looked like a victory of corruption. Luckily, Second Division did not suffer from the same, for if it was the whole Yugoslavian football pyramid may have collapsed.
Let start with teams from lower leagues – just a taste. Teams, which used to play top level football, or had solid place in Yugoslav minds, or came out of obscurity after the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
11 oktomvri (Prilep)
Obilic (Belgrade).
Kolubara
Balkan (Skopje)
Metallurg (Skopje)
BSK Slavonski Brod
Segesta (Sisak)
Koper (Beltinci)
Lirija (Prizren).