August 1939 the Croatian Football Federation (Hrvatski nogometni savez or HNS) was established as a football governing body in the newly created province, and Croatian and Slovenian clubs soon began leaving the Yugoslav League to join the HNS-run Croatian-Slovenian Football League in protest of the alleged centralization of sports around Belgrade. The split was eventually rectified with the promise of an increase in the number of Croatian and Slovenian clubs in the league, and because of this a shortened ten-round league was played in the 1939–40 Yugoslav First League season. In 1940 HNS also played a part in organizing the first ever Croatia national football team matches which played four international friendlies between April and December 1940. However the federation was not yet recognized by FIFA as Croatia was at the time still a province of Yugoslavia. In April 1941 Kingdom of Yugoslavia was invaded by Axis Powers and was effectively dissolved. However, the Croatian Football Federation continued to run a competition called the Croatian national football league in the territory of Independent State of Croatia (NDH), a fascist puppet state which enjoyed relative peace during World War II, and which included most of present-day countries of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 17 July 1941 HNS was admitted to FIFA as the top level federation of NDH, and the national team representing NDH played fourteen international matches in the period from 1941 to 1944. HNS in Yugoslavia (1945–1990) Following the end of World War II, Croatia became a part of SFR Yugoslavia and the Belgrade-based Football Association of Yugoslavia took over as the main football-governing body in the country. Also, the new communist government issued a decree in 1945 which effectively dissolved all football clubs which were active during the war as a form of punishment for their participation in the fascist-run football championship. Among others, Zagreb-based powerhouses Concordia, HAŠK and Građanski all ceased to exist, their property was nationalised, and several other clubs, most notably Dinamo Zagreb, were formed to take their place. On the other hand, Hajduk Split was spared as their players had escaped from their Italian-occupied home city of Split during World War II and joined Yugoslav Partisans in 1944. For this reason, Hajduk Split is the only major Croatian club which can claim continuity since its foundation in 1911. In the period from 1945 to 1990 the Belgrade-based Yugoslav Football Federation was in charge