Rijeka

1904–1926

Club Sportivo Olimpia was established on 21 April 1904 as a multisport organisation during the period in which Rijeka, then commonly known as Fiume, formed a corpus separatum within Austria-Hungary. Its activities included football, tennis, swimming, cycling and athletics. The earliest presently documented activity of its football section dates from 25 November 1906, which the club recognises as the beginning of its football history.

Olimpia initially played at Scoglietto and subsequently used the ground at Kantrida. Its membership and playing staff reflected the multilingual population of the city and included people of Italian, Croatian, Hungarian and German backgrounds. A local rivalry developed with Club Sportivo Gloria, whose support was associated principally with the city's working-class districts.

The club changed the spelling of its name from Olimpia to Olympia in 1918. Olympia and Gloria continued competing in regional competitions after the First World War. In September 1926, following changes to Italian football introduced under the Fascist government, the two clubs were merged to form Unione Sportiva Fiumana.

1926–1945

U.S. Fiumana began competing under its new name in 1926. The club won the Italian Coppa Federale in 1927–28 and competed in the top division of Italian football in 1928–29. It spent most of the following decade in the second and third tiers and won its Serie C group in 1940–41.

Official league competition ceased following the collapse of Fascist Italy in 1943. Fiumana continued to play occasional friendly matches during the German occupation. A number of its players participated in the partisan resistance, while several were imprisoned or deported to concentration camps.

1945–1954

After the Second World War, Fiumana briefly resumed activity through a trade-union representative team while the international status of Rijeka remained unresolved. In 1946, the Yugoslav authorities reorganised sporting organisations according to the physical-culture society model used elsewhere in the country.

S.C.F. Quarnero, later also known by the Croatian name Kvarner, was formally registered as a new club in 1946. Historical research nevertheless identifies substantial sporting continuity with Fiumana: eight former Fiumana first-team players and one reserve-team player subsequently represented Kvarner, while the new organisation inherited the same principal stadium and much of the same support base. The initiative was led by Ettore Mazzieri and Renato Tich, both of whom had been involved in the city's earlier sporting life.

Quarnero participated in the inaugural 1946–47 Yugoslav First League. As a physical-culture society it initially incorporated several sports in addition to football. In 1948, the football section became a separate club under the bilingual name S.C. Quarnero – N.K. Kvarner.

1954–1991

In 1954, amid the Trieste riots and the decline of official bilingualism in Rijeka, the club adopted the monolingual name NK Rijeka. The club began regularly using a white home kit during the 1957–58 season. Rijeka returned to the Yugoslav First League in 1958 and remained in the top division until relegation in 1969.

The club's greatest successes during this period are two Yugoslav Cup titles in 1978 and 1979 and a runner-up finish in 1987, when Rijeka lost the final in the penalty shoot-out. The club never managed to finish the season higher than fourth place in the Yugoslav First League. In 1984, the club came closest to a Yugoslav championship title, finishing only two points behind Red Star Belgrade. Rijeka were also the best placed Croatian club in the Yugoslav First League in 1965, 1984 and 1987.

1991–present

Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, Rijeka became a founding member of the Croatian top division in 1992. In 1995, the club adopted its present name, Hrvatski nogometni klub Rijeka. Rijeka won their first Croatian league title in 2016–17, ending Dinamo Zagreb's sequence of eleven consecutive championships. They won a second league title in 2024–25. In both championship seasons, Rijeka also won the Croatian Football Cup, completing domestic doubles. The 2024–25 cup victory was the club's seventh since Croatian independence.

Rijeka narrowly missed the championship in 1998–99. In the final round, with Rijeka and Osijek level at 1–1, an 89th-minute goal by Admir Hasančić was disallowed for offside. Rijeka consequently finished one point behind Croatia Zagreb. A later three-dimensional reconstruction commissioned by 24sata concluded that Hasančić had not been in an offside position. Nacional subsequently reported that state intelligence services had monitored football officials and journalists during the season; those allegations have remained part of the controversy surrounding the championship.

HNK Rijeka in the European competitions

By the 2026–27 season, Rijeka had entered UEFA club competitions in 26 seasons, including 14 consecutive seasons from 2013–14 onward. The club's furthest progress in a UEFA competition was the quarter-final of the 1979–80 European Cup Winners' Cup, in which it lost 2–0 on aggregate to Juventus. Rijeka also defeated eventual competition winners Real Madrid 3–1 at home in the 1984–85 UEFA Cup. In the return match in Madrid, Rijeka lost 3–0 after three of their players were sent off. One of those players, Damir Desnica, who had been deaf since birth, received a second yellow card for allegedly insulting the referee.