Italia Azzurra

History

Juventus FC, 1903 runners-up

The first official national football tournament was organised in 1898 by the Italian Football Federation (Italian: Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio, FIGC).^[1] This tournament, the final matches of the first Italian Football Championship, were held in a single day, 8 May 1898, in Turin. Genoa Cricket and Athletics Club were crowned as champions, defeating Internazionale Torino by 3–1 following extra time.^[1] In the following years, the tournament was structured into regional groups with the winners of each group participating in a playoff with the eventual winners being declared champions. The format was modified for the 1909–10 season which was played in a league format. Nine clubs participated playing each other both home and away, and with the clubs finishing first and second playing for the championship in a single playoff final. This season was the first victory for Internazionale who defeated Pro Vercelli in the final by 10–3.^[2] The 1912–13 season saw the competition nationalised with North and South divisions.^[3] In 1916 Milan won the Coppa Federale, which for that season was a substitute for the championship, which had been suspended because of the First World War.^[4] The tournament that year was limited to clubs from the north with the execption of Pro Vercelli but was not treated as an official trophy or recognised by FIGC as an Italian title.

Controversy hit the Championship in the 1921–22 season which saw the major clubs (including Pro Vercelli, Bologna and Juventus) in dispute with the FIGC. The teams had asked for a reduction in the number of clubs in the top division in accordance with a plan drawn up by Vittorio Pozzo, the Italian national team coach. Pozzo's plan was dismissed and the CCI (Italian: Confederazione Calcistica Italiana) was founded and organised a 1921–22 CCI league to run concurrently with the 1921–22 season organised by the FIGC.^[5] Further scandal followed in the 1926–27 season when title-winners Torino were stripped of their scudetto following an FIGC investigation. A Torino official was found to have bribed opposing defender Luigi Allemandi in Torino's match against Juventus FC on 5 June 1927, and thus the season finished with no declared champions.^[6]

Following the scandal of match-fixing and the split between the FIGC and the CCI, the Viareggio charter was drawn up to legalise professionalism, ban foreign players and rationalise the championship from its regionalised state into national leagues; the Serie A and Serie B.^[7] The 1929–30 season was the inaugural Serie A season and was won by Ambrosiana. The next eleven years were dominated by Juventus and Bologna who won all of the scudetti between them but further success was truncated as the Championship was suspended in 1943 due to the Second World War.^[5] A Championship was held in 1944, the Campionato Alta Italia, and won by Spezia Calcio 1906.^[8] The title was not officially recognised by FIGC until 2002 and even then the scudetto is considered a "decoration".^[9]

The post-war years were dominated by Grande Torino while Juventus finished second three times in a row.^[5] The 1950s saw the gradual emergence of Milan, with the help of Swedish striker Gunnar Nordahl who was Serie A's leading scorer (Italian: Capocannonieri) for five out of six seasons. Juventus began to dominate throughout the 1970s and early 1980s with nine scudetti in fifteen seasons while the 1990s saw Milan come to prominence.^[5]

Serie A was dealt another blow by the 2006 Serie A scandal which involved alleged widespread match fixing implicating league champions Juventus, and other major teams including Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina.^[10] The FIGC ruled Juventus be stripped of their title, relegated to Serie B and start the following season with a nine-point deduction. The other clubs involved suffered similarly with relegation and points deduction.^[11