The Gateway Football Conference is a college athletic conference which operates in the midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS; still frequently referred to by its former designation of Division I-AA) as a football-only conference.

he league was formed from the remnant football schools of the old Missouri Valley when it stopped sponsoring its hybrid I-A/I-AA football league in 1985. The I-AA members from the MVC, Illinois State, Indiana State, and Southern Illinois, joined Eastern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Southwest Missouri State, and Western Illinois from the AMCU. After Eastern Illinois joined the Ohio Valley Conference for football in 1995, Youngstown State joined in 1997 and was followed by Western Kentucky in 2001. Southwest Missouri State changed its name to Missouri State in 2005.

On November 2, 2006, Western Kentucky's Board of Regents approved a proposal by the school's president to upgrade the football program to the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Division I-A). The Hilltoppers will leave the GFC after the 2006 season, go through the two-year "reclassification" period mandated by the NCAA for schools moving from the FCS to the FBS, and then join the Sun Belt Conference for football in 2009 (it is already a member of that conference for other sports).

Due to Western Kentucky's move, the Gateway was left with 7 members for the 2007 season. However, Great West Football Conference members North Dakota State and South Dakota State were asked to submit information about themselves and to attend the conference presidents' meeting. On March, 7, 2007, the conference announced that both schools would join the conference beginning with the 2008 season.

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