Serie A
The Serie A (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsɛːrje ˈa][1]), officially known as Serie A TIM for sponsorship reasons,[2] is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system. The winners are awarded the Coppa Campioni d'Italia trophy and the scudetto, a decoration that they wear on the jersey the season after the victory. It has been operating as a round-robin tournament for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had been organized by the Direttorio Divisioni Superiori until 1943, the Lega Calcio until 2010, and the Lega Serie A ever since. Serie A is regarded as one of the best football leagues in the world and it is often depicted as the most tactical and defensively sound national league.[3] Serie A was ranked the world's best national league in 2023 by IFFHS,[4] and is ranked second among European leagues according to UEFA's league coefficient – behind the Premier League, and ahead of La Liga, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 – which is based on the performance of Italian clubs in the Champions League and the Europa League during the previous five years. Serie A led the UEFA ranking from 1986 to 1988 and from 1990 to 1999.[5]
This article is about the Italian football league. For other uses, see Serie A (disambiguation).Organising body
1898
1929 (as round-robin)
Inter Milan (20th title)
(2023–24)
Juventus (36 titles)
- Gianluigi Buffon (657)
Silvio Piola (274)
In its current format, the Italian Football Championship was revised from having regional and interregional rounds, to a single-tier league from the 1929–30 season onwards. The championship titles won before 1929 are officially recognised by FIGC with the same weighting as titles that were subsequently awarded. Similarly, the 1945–46 season, when the round-robin was suspended and the league was played over two geographical groups due to the ravages of World War II, is not statistically considered, even if its title is fully official.[6]
The league hosts three of the world's most famous clubs as Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan, all founding members of the G-14, a group which represented the largest and most prestigious European football clubs from 2000 to 2008,[7] with the first two also being founding members of its successive organisation, European Club Association (ECA). More players have won the Ballon d'Or award while playing at a Serie A club than any league in the world other than Spain's La Liga,[8] although La Liga has the highest total number of Ballon d'Or winners. Juventus, Italy's most successful club of the 20th century[9] and the most winning Italian team,[10] is tied for sixth in Europe and twelfth in the world with the most official international titles with eleven.[11] Prior the first Europa Conference League final in 2022, it was also the only one in the world to have won all the historical five official confederation competitions, an achievement reached after its triumph in the 1985 Intercontinental Cup and revalidated after winning a sixth tournament, the UEFA Intertoto Cup, fourteen years later.[12] Milan is joint third club overall for official international titles won with nineteen.[13] Inter, following their achievements in the 2009–10 season, became the first Italian team to have achieved a seasonal treble. It is also the team to have competed uninterruptedly for the most time in the top flight of Italian football, having seen its debut in 1909.[14][15] All these clubs, along with Lazio, Fiorentina, Roma and Napoli, are known as the "seven sisters" (sette sorelle) of Italian football.[16][17][18][19][20][note 1]
Serie A is one of the most storied football leagues in the world. Of the 100 greatest footballers in history chosen by FourFourTwo in 2017, 42 players have played in Serie A, more than any other league in the world.[21] Juventus is the team that has produced the most World Cup champions (27), with Inter (20), Roma (16) and Milan (10), being respectively third, fourth and ninth in that ranking.[22]
History[edit]
Serie A, as it is structured today, began during the 1929–30 season. From 1898 to 1922, the competition was organised into regional groups. Because of ever growing teams attending regional championships, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) split the CCI (Italian Football Confederation) in 1921, which founded in Milan the Lega Nord (Northern Football League), ancestor of present-day Lega Serie A. When CCI teams rejoined the FIGC created two interregional divisions renaming Categories into Divisions and splitting FIGC sections into two north–south leagues. In 1926, due to internal crises and fascist pressures, the FIGC changed internal settings, adding southern teams to the national division, ultimately leading to the 1929–30 final settlement.
The Serie A Championship title is often referred to as the scudetto ("small shield") because since the 1923–24 season, the winning team will bear a small coat of arms with the Italian tricolour on their strip in the following season. The most successful club is Juventus with 36 championships, followed by Inter Milan with 20 championships and AC Milan with 19 championships. From the 2004–05 season onwards, an actual trophy was awarded to club on the pitch after the last turn of the championship. The trophy, called the Coppa Campioni d'Italia, has officially been used since the 1960–61 season, but between 1961 and 2004 was consigned to the winning clubs at the head office of the Lega Nazionale Professionisti.
In April 2009, Serie A announced a split from Serie B. Nineteen of the twenty clubs voted in favour of the move in an argument over television rights; the relegation-threatened Lecce had voted against the decision. Maurizio Beretta, the former head of Italy's employers' association, became president of the new league.[23][24][25][26]
In April 2016, it was announced that Serie A was selected by the International Football Association Board to test video replays, which were initially private for the 2016–17 season, allowing them to become a live pilot phase, with replay assistance implemented in the 2017–18 season.[27] On the decision, FIGC President Carlo Tavecchio said: "We were among the first supporters of using technology on the pitch and we believe we have everything required to offer our contribution to this important experiment."[28]
Serie A will continue the 20 club format after sixteen clubs voted against reducing the division to 18 teams in February 2024.[29]
Logos[edit]
Serie A had logos that featured its sponsor Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM). The logo that was introduced in 2010 had a minor change in 2016 due to the change of the logo of TIM itself.[35][36] In August 2018, a new logo was announced, and another one in August 2019.[37]
On 5 February, Serie A signed a new sponsor deal with Eni, otherwise known as Enilive, to take the main sponsor role of the Serie A.[38][39][40]
Players[edit]
Non-EU players[edit]
Unlike La Liga, for example, which has long imposed a quota on the number of players able to play for each club who hold passports from countries that are not in the European Union, Serie A has undergone many rule changes concerning the number of non-EU players clubs could sign.
During the 1980s and 1990s, most Serie A clubs signed a large number of players from foreign nations (both EU and non-EU members). Notable foreign players to play in Serie A during this era included Irish international Liam Brady, England internationals Paul Gascoigne and David Platt, France's Michel Platini and Laurent Blanc, Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann from Germany, Dutchmen Ruud Gullit and Dennis Bergkamp, and Argentina's Diego Maradona.
In the middle of the 2000–01 season, the old quota system, which limited each team to having no more than five non-EU players and using no more than three in each match, was abolished.[47][48] Concurrent with the abolishment of the quota, the FIGC had investigated footballers that used fake passports. Alberto and Warley, Alejandro Da Silva and Jorginho Paulista of Udinese;[49] Fábio Júnior and Gustavo Bartelt of Roma;[50] Dida of Milan; Álvaro Recoba of Inter; Thomas Job, Francis Zé, Jean Ondoa of Sampdoria; and Jeda and Dede of Vicenza were all banned in July 2001 for lengths ranging from six months to one year.[51] However, most of the bans were subsequently reduced.
At the start of the 2003–04 season, a quota was imposed on each of the clubs limiting the number of non-EU, non-EFTA and non-Swiss players who may be signed from abroad each season,[52] following provisional measures[47] introduced in the 2002–03 season, which allowed Serie A and B clubs to sign only one non-EU player in the 2002 summer transfer window.
The rule underwent minor changes in August 2004,[53] June 2005,[54] June 2006,[55][56] and June 2007.[57]
The number of non-EU players was reduced from 265 in 2002–03 season to 166 in 2006–07 season.[58] This reduction also included players who received EU status after their respective countries joined the EU (see 2004 and 2007 enlargement), which made players such as Adrian Mutu, Valeri Bojinov, Marek Jankulovski and Marius Stankevičius EU players.
The quota system changed again at the beginning of the 2008–09 season: three quotas were awarded to clubs that do not have non-EU players in their squad (previously only newly promoted clubs could have three quotas); clubs that had one non-EU player had two quotas. Those clubs that had two non-EU players were awarded one quota and one conditional quota, which was awarded after: 1) Transferred 1 non-EU player abroad, or 2) Release 1 non-EU player as free agent, or 3) A non-EU player received EU nationality. Clubs with three or more non-EU players had two conditional quotas, but releasing two non-EU players as free agent only gave one quota instead of two.[59] Serie B and Lega Pro clubs could not sign non-EU players from abroad, except those that followed a club promoted from Serie D.
On 2 July 2010, the above conditional quota was reduced back to one, though if a team did not have any non-EU players, that team could still sign up to three non-EU players.[60][61][62] In 2011 the signing quota reverted to two.[63]
Large clubs with many foreigners usually borrow quotas from other clubs that have few foreigners or no foreigners in order to sign more non-EU players. For example, Adrian Mutu joined Juventus via Livorno in 2005, as at the time Romania was not a member of the EU. Other examples include Júlio César, Victor Obinna and Maxwell, who joined Inter from Chievo (first two) and Empoli, respectively.
Homegrown players[edit]
Serie A also imposed Homegrown players rule, a modification of Homegrown Player Rule (UEFA). Unlike UEFA, Serie A at first did not cap the number of players in first team squad at 25, meaning the club could employ more foreigners by increasing the size of the squad.[64] However, a cap of 25 (under-21 players were excluded) was introduced to 2015–16 season (in 2015–16 season, squad simply require 8 homegrown players but not require 4 of them from their own youth team).[65] In the 2016–17 season, the FIGC sanctioned Sassuolo for fielding ineligible player, Antonino Ragusa.[66] Although the club did not exceed the capacity of 21 players that were not from their own youth team (only Domenico Berardi was eligible as youth product of their own) as well as under 21 of age (born 1995 or after, of which four players were eligible) in their 24-men call-up,[67] It was reported that on Lega Serie A side the squad list was not updated.[68]
In 2015–16 season, the following quota was announced.