Football in Croatia, called nogomet, is the most popular team sport in the country and is led by the Croatian Football Federation. It is played in four official components; the domestic league consists of three hierarchical echelons, and a single national team represents the entire state. The first Croat clubs were founded prior to the First World War and participated in the Yugoslavian league structure after Croatia became a part of Yugoslavia following the war. From 1940 to 1944, nineteen friendly matches were played by a Croatia national side representing the Second World War-era puppet states of the Banovina of Croatia and Independent State of Croatia. After the war, most of the prominent Yugoslavian clubs, including clubs in Croatia, were dissolved and replaced with new sides by Marshall Tito's Communist regime. Today, club football in Croatia is dominated by Hajduk Split and Dinamo Zagreb. Since independence, the country has produced a string of players who have performed well in many of Europe's most highly-regarded leagues and who took the national team to third place at the 1998 World Cup.

Fußball wurde in Kroatien bereits 1873 von englischen Arbeitern in der Hafenstadt Rijeka gespielt. Die erste offizielle Begegnung wurde von englischen Matrosen in Zadar veranstaltet. In der Folgezeit begannen immer mehr kroatische Jugendliche unter der Anleitung von Engländern mit dem Fußballspiel.