Malmo FF

Early years

The club arose from a municipal initiative in 1905 to encourage young people in Malmö to play organised football. One of the youth teams, the Bollklubben Idrott, also known simply as BK Idrott, was a predecessor to the Malmö FF. BK Idrott joined the newly created football department of the IFK Malmö in 1909, but soon left because of issues between the two clubs. On 24 February 1910 the 19 members of the BK Idrott founded the Malmö FF; the first chairman was Werner Mårtensson.

The club spent its first ten years in local and regional divisions as there was no official national league competition, playing the majority of their matches in the city division called the Malmömästerskapen. They also competed in regional competitions in Scania, and played matches against Danish clubs. In 1916 the Malmö FF reached the final of the Scanian regional competition (Distriktsmästerskapen) for the first time, playing against rival the Helsingborgs IF but losing 3–4. The club defeated local rival the IFK Malmö three times during the season, and thus earned the unofficial but much desired title of Malmö's best football club. In 1917 the Malmö FF competed for the first time in the Svenska Mästerskapet, a cup tournament for the title of Swedish champions, but lost their first match in the second qualifying round 4–1 against the IFK Malmö. The club continued to play in the cup until 1922, reaching the quarter-finals in 1920 when they were knocked out by the Landskrona BoIS. The cup was eventually discontinued and the title of Swedish champions was given to the winners of the Allsvenskan which was first created for the 1924–25 season.

In 1920 the Swedish Football Association invited Swedish football clubs to compete in official national competitions. Malmö FF earned a place in the Division 2 Sydsvenska Serien. They won this division in the first season, and were promoted to the Svenska Serien Västra, the highest level of competition in Sweden at the time. However, they were relegated after a single season, and found themselves back in the Sydsvenska Serien for nearly a decade until they again achieved promotion to the Allsvenskan, in 1931.

First years in the Allsvenskan and early achievements

The club achieved mid-table league positions for two seasons, but was relegated in 1934 as a penalty for breaking amateur regulations. The club had paid their players a small sum of money for each game. Although against the rules, this was common at the time; Malmö FF was the only club to show it in the accounting records. In addition to relegation to Division 2, the club suffered bans for the entire board of directors and twenty-six players. The version of events told by Malmö FF and local press suggests that local rival, IFK Malmö, had reported the violation to the Swedish Football Association. This belief has contributed to the longstanding competitive tensions between the clubs.

The club made their way back to the Allsvenskan in 1937 after two seasons in the Division 2. In the same year Eric Persson was elected as chairman after being secretary since 1929, and held the position until 1974. Persson is regarded by club leaders and fans as the most important person in the club's history, as he turned the club professional in the 1970s. Under his leadership the club went from being titleless in 1937 to holding ten Swedish championships by the end of the 1974 season. In 1939 the club reached its highest position yet, third place in the Allsvenskan, nine points behind champions the IF Elfsborg. Malmö FF's first Swedish championship came in 1944, when the club won the penultimate game of the season against AIK before 36,000 spectators at the Råsunda. The last game of the season was won 7–0 against Halmstad BK.

The following nine seasons, Malmö FF finished in the top three in the league. The club won the Swedish Championship in 1949, 1950, 1951 and 1953, and were runners-up in 1946, 1948 and 1952. The club also won the Svenska Cupen in 1944, 1946, 1947, 1951 and 1953, and finished as runners-up in 1945. Between 6 May 1949 and 1 June 1951, the team were unbeaten in 49 matches, of which 23 were an unbroken streak of victories.

The club finished as runners-up in the Allsvenskan twice more, in 1956 and 1957. The following year the club left the Malmö IP for the Malmö Stadion, which had been built for the 1958 FIFA World Cup, and was to host the club for 50 years. In 1964 Malmö FF contracted Spanish manager Antonio Durán; this was the first of a series of changes that led to the most successful era in the club's history. Young talents such as Lars Granström and Bo Larsson emerged during the early 1960s and would prove to be crucial ingredients in the success that would come in the 1970s. The club finished second in 1964 but went on to win their sixth Swedish Championship in 1965, when Bo Larsson scored 28 goals to finish as the league's top goal scorer. The Malmö FF once again won the Allsvenskan in 1967, after a less successful year in 1966. The club's young players, as well as talents bought in from neighbouring clubs in Scania in 1967, became a team that consistently finished in the top three in the Allsvenskan.

Successful 1970s, European Cup 1979, 1980s and 1990s

After finishing as runners-up in Allsvenskan for the final two years of the 1960s, Malmö FF started the most successful decade of their history with a Swedish Championship in 1970. The club won Allsvenskan in 1970, 1971, 1974, 1975 and 1977 as well as Svenska Cupen in 1976 and 1978. The 1977 Allsvenskan victory qualified the club for the 1978–79 European Cup, and after victories against AS Monaco, Dynamo Kyiv, Wisła Kraków and Austria Wien, Malmö FF reached the final of the competition, which was played at the Olympiastadion in Munich against Nottingham Forest. Trevor Francis, who scored the only goal of the match, won it 1–0 for Nottingham Forest. Nevertheless, the 1979 European Cup run is the biggest success in the history of Malmö FF. The team were given the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal the same year, awarded for the most significant Swedish sporting achievement of the year, for their achievement in the European Cup.

Much of the success during the 1970s was due to new tactics and training methods brought to the club by Englishman Bob Houghton, who managed the club between 1974 and 1980. Eric Persson was succeeded as chairman in 1974 by Hans Cavalli-Björkman. After the team performed respectably under managers Keith Blunt and Tord Grip in the early 1980s, Roy Hodgson took over in 1985. Roy Hodgson led Malmö FF to two Swedish Championships in 1986 and 1988, and the club won Allsvenskan five years in a row between 1985 and 1989. At the time, the championship was decided by play-offs between the best teams after the end of the regular season; this arrangement was in place from 1982 until 1992. The club reached the play-off final four times between 1986 and 1989 but only managed to win the final twice. Apart from Allsvenskan and Swedish Championships, Malmö FF won Svenska Cupen in 1984, 1986 and 1989.

Other than finishing as runners-up in Allsvenskan in 1996, the team did not excel in the 1990s, as the club failed to win Allsvenskan and Svenska Cupen throughout the entire decade. The 1990s ended with relegation from Allsvenskan in 1999. Hans Cavalli-Björkman was succeeded as chairman by Bengt Madsen in 1999, and former player Hasse Borg was contracted as Director of Sport. These operational changes, as well as the emergence of young talent Zlatan Ibrahimović, led to the return to Allsvenskan in 2001. Ibrahimović rose to fame and became an important player in Malmö FF's campaign to return to the top league. He was later sold to Ajax in 2001, before playing for several European clubs in Italy's Serie A, FC Barcelona in Spain's La Liga, Paris Saint-Germain in France's Ligue 1, Manchester United F.C. in England's Premier League, LA Galaxy in the MLS, and AC Milan again until his retirement in 2023.

Start of the 2000s to the present

The return to Allsvenskan was the start of the successful early 2000s, under the management of Tom Prahl, when the club finished in the top three times in a row. In 2004, it won Allsvenskan, the club's fifteenth Swedish Championship. In 2005, the club reached the last qualifying round for the UEFA Champions League but were defeated by FC Thun. Successful sponsor work and player sales also made Malmö FF the richest club in Sweden. This position was further cemented by the successive Champions League group stage appearances the two following years. Malmö FF moved from Malmö Stadion to Eleda Stadion in 2009, a stadium built entirely for football and located next to the old one.

In 2009, Madsen announced that he would step down as chairman, and was replaced by Håkan Jeppsson early the following year. In 2010, the club marked their 100th anniversary with many celebratory events at the beginning of the season. On the day of the club's 100th anniversary in 2010, the Swedish football magazine Offside declared Malmö FF to be the greatest football club in Swedish history. The season became a great success as the club won Allsvenskan for the nineteenth time and became Swedish champions for the sixteenth time. Unlike in 2004, these successes were achieved without any major transfers before the season, and with a squad consisting mostly of younger players.

In October 2013, Malmö FF won their seventeenth Swedish championship and 20th Allsvenskan title in the penultimate round of the league away from home. Similar to 2010, the title was the result of a young squad. The average age of the squad, 23.8 years, was the youngest team to become champions since the beginning of the 21st century. The following year Malmö FF qualified for the group stage of the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League by beating Ventspils, Sparta Prague and Red Bull Salzburg in the qualifying rounds. This was the first time the club qualified for the competition proper since the re-branding from the European Cup in the 1992–93 season and the first time since the 2000–01 season that a Swedish club qualified. In the following months Malmö FF defended their league title, winning their eighteenth Swedish championship and 21st Allsvenskan title. This was the first time a club defended the Allsvenskan title since the 2003 season.

The 2015 season saw Malmö FF failing to retaining the title and missing out on the top-four for the first time since 2009. However, the club managed to qualify once again to the group stages of the UEFA Champions League in the 2015–16 UEFA Champions League edition, beating Žalgiris Vilnius, Red Bull Salzburg and Celtic in qualifiers. In October 2016, Malmö FF won their nineteenth Swedish championship and 22nd Allsvenskan title. The title was Malmö FF's third in the span of four years. This resulted in the club surpassing IFK Göteborg in terms of Swedish championship titles, indisputably becoming the most successful Swedish football club of all time.

Malmö FF is a dominant force in Sweden. As of the end of the 2021 Allsvenskan season, the club are the leaders of the overall Allsvenskan table maratontabellen. Malmö FF are also the record holders for the total number of Swedish championships, Allsvenskan titles and Svenska Cupen titles.