Early years The IUFU was originally formed in 1970–71 as the
Universities and Colleges Football Union under the leadership of Dr. Tony O'Neill, the club secretary/manager of
University College Dublin A.F.C. and an FAI general secretary. In 1972 a separate association, the CFAI, was established for college teams. The IUFU initially took over the organisation of the
Collingwood Cup before introducing new competitions such as the
Collingwood Plate, the North–South University League, the Harding Cup for first year students and the Crowley Cup for
reserve team players. In 2006–07 the IUFU, in conjunction with the CFAI, established the
Umbro sponsored Colleges and Universities Football League.
Ulster University dispute In 2015 the IUFU became involved in an internal dispute involving
Ulster University and their campus football teams. On Sunday, 22 February 2015,
UU Jordanstown were due to play
UCD in the first round of the
Collingwood Cup. However, on Friday, 19 February, just two days earlier, the IUFU barred them from the competition. UUJ were banned because they planned to field players from
Magee College in the team. Ulster University wanted to enter a single team featuring players from three campuses –
Coleraine,
Jordanstown and Magee. However football officials at Coleraine opposed this idea and entered the Collingwood Cup under their own name. Meanwhile, UU decided to enter the tournament as Jordanstown, while Magee opted not to enter the competition. With the Magee club not involved, UU decided to enter a joint team that included players from both Jordanstown and Magee. However, they were informed by IUFU that it was against Collingwood Cup rules to select players from more than one campus. As UU refused to comply with the IUFU requests and enter a team that only consisted of players from the Jordanstown campus, the IUFU opted to expel them from the competition. Meanwhile, the team representing Coleraine competed in the tournament, however according to club officials, they did not receive any funding from their Ulster University, who do not recognise them as an official university team. ==Representative games==