First Football League (Croatia)
Croatian association football league
The Prva nogometna liga (English: First football league), commonly Prva NL or 1. NL, is the second tier of the football league system in Croatia. The league was formed in 1991 with the breakup of Yugoslavia and the dissolution of the Yugoslav Second League. The 1. NL is operated by the Croatian Football Federation, which also was formed in 1991, contributing (along with the newly formed Football Association of Slovenia) to the dissolution of the Football Association of Yugoslavia.
Between the 2001–02 season and 2005–06 season, the league was split in two divisions, one being the Northern Croatian Second League and the other being the Southern Croatian Second League. Each of these two leagues comprised twelve teams playing under a system pretty much identical to the one in the HNL. However, since the start of the 2006–07 season, the First Football League consisted of at least twelve teams from the entire country. Relegation from this division is into the 2. NL.
From the inaugural merged season in 2006–07 until 2021–22, the division was known as the Second Football League (Croatian: Druga nogometna liga), but was renamed as were the other leagues of the Croatian football system for the start of the 2022–23 season.
Winning clubs
Key
References
External links
Official website (in Croatian)
[1]
2.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “First Football League (Croatia)” is croatian association football league. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through First, Football and League, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “croatian association football league” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q209967. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991, 2001, 2005 and 2006.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “First Football League (Croatia)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.