Zrinjski Mostar HŠK Zrinjski Mostar is the oldest football club in Bosnia and Herzegovina, founded in 1905 by Croatian students in Mostar, then part of Austria-Hungary. The club's name, settled on in 1912, honours the historic Croatian noble Zrinski family, which also gave the team its nickname, "Plemići" (The Nobles). Its crest still carries a red-and-white checkerboard pattern drawing on Croatian national symbolism, and the club plays in white and red.
The club's history was not continuous, however. In 1945 the communist authorities of Yugoslavia banned Zrinjski, branding it a collaborationist club over its participation in wartime competitions, and it disappeared from the football map for almost half a century. It was only re-established in 1992, after Bosnia and Herzegovina gained independence. Until 2000 the Mostar side competed in the separate Herzeg-Bosnia league before joining the unified Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Zrinjski won its first national championship in the 2004–05 season, exactly a century after the club's founding. Since then, the Mostar side has become the most decorated team in the league's history: through the 2024–25 season it had claimed a record nine league titles and three Bosnian Cups. The club is backed by the Ultras Mostar supporters' group, active since 1994, and plays its home matches at Stadion pod Bijelim Brijegom, opened in 1971.
The club's most significant European chapter was written in the 2023–24 season, when Zrinjski became the first Bosnian club ever to reach the group stage of a European competition, drawn into a UEFA Conference League group alongside Aston Villa, AZ Alkmaar and Legia Warsaw. In the opening match of that stage, the Mostar side trailed the Dutch club 0–3 at half-time, only to fight back and win 4–3 — one of the most memorable results in the history of Bosnian club football.
