Italian football champions

The Italian football champions (Italian: "Scudetto" - little shield) are the annual winners of Serie A, Italy's premier annual football league competition. The title has been contested since 1898, in varying forms of competition. While Internazionale are the current champions, Juventus FC has won a record 27 championship titles. The first time "scudetto" was used in 1924 when Genoa C.F.C. won his 8th championship title and decided to point a little shield as to reward and celebrate themselves, the champions.

The finals of the first Italian Football Championship was decided in a single day with four teams competing, three from Turin and one from Genoa. The title was decided using a knock-out format between the finalists with Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club the inaugural winners. The knock-out format was used until the 1909–10 season, when a league consisting of nine teams was formed. The regular league season was followed by a championship game featuring the first and second place teams. The championship, which had been confined to a single league in the north of Italy, became a national competition in 1929 with the foundation of Serie A and Serie B.

Several times in history, a champion was not named. World wars suspended the official Championship from both 1915 to 1919 and 1943 to 1945 although unofficial championships were contested in both 1916 and 1944. Match fixing prevented a champion being declared in both the 1926–27 and 2004–05 seasons with Torino FC and Juventus FC being stripped of their titles.

History

Italian Football Championship

[
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).Cite web
url = http://www.figc.it/english/storia/storia_completa.htm#1898
title = FIGC History - 1898
accessdate = 2007-04-26
publisher = FIGC] 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. 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. [Cite web
url = http://www.rsssf.com/tablesi/italhist98-25.html#10
title = Italy - Championship History 1898-1923
publisher = rsssf.com
accessdate = 2007-04-26] The 1912–13 season saw the competition nationalised with North and South divisions. [Cite web
url = http://www.figc.it/english/storia/storia_completa.htm#1913
title = FIGC History - 1913
accessdate = 2007-04-26
publisher = FIGC] In 1916 AC 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. [Cite web
url = http://www.rsssf.com/tablesj/juvemilan.html
title = Juventus FC vs AC Milan
publisher = rsssf.com
accessdate = 2007-04-26] 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 FC and Juventus FC) 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.Cite web
url = http://www.rsssf.com/tablesi/italchamp.html
title = Italy - List of Champions
accessdate = 2007-04-26
publisher = rsssf.com] 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. [Cite web
url = http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/internationals/article1166526.ece
title = Italy are fabulously flawed
author = James Lawton
publisher = The Independent
date = 2006-07-08
accessdate = 2007-04-17]

erie A

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. [Cite book
title = Calcio - a history of Italian Football
author = John Foot
ISBN = 0007175744
publisher = Fourth Estate] The 1929–30 season was the inaugural Serie A season and was won by Ambrosiana. The next eleven years were dominated by Juventus FC and Bologna FC 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. A Championship was held in 1944, the Campionato Alta Italia, and won by Spezia Calcio 1906. [Cite web
url = http://www.rsssf.com/tablesi/ital44.html
title = Italy 1943/44 (War Championship)
publisher = rsssf.com
accessdate = 2007-04-26] The title was not officially recognised by FIGC until 2002 and even then the "scudetto" is considered a "decoration". [Cite web
url = http://www.acspezia1906.it/LaStoria/lo_scudetto_del_44_4p.asp
language = Italian
publisher = Spezia Calcio 1906
accessdate = 2007-04-26
title = Lo scudetto del '44 - 4a parte]

The post-war years were dominated by Grande Torino while Juventus finished second three times in a row. The 1950s saw the gradual emergence of AC 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 AC Milan come to prominence.

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 AC Milan, Fiorentina, Lazio, and Reggina. [Cite web
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/4993482.stm
title = Serie A quartet will stand trial
publisher = BBC Sport
date = 2006-06-23
accessdate = 2007-04-26] 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. [Cite web
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/5164194.stm
title = Italian trio relegated to Serie B
publisher = BBC Sport
date = 2006-07-14
accessdate = 2007-04-26]

Winners

Italian Football Championship

Regions

The following table lists the Italian football champions by region.

Cities

The following table lists the Italian football champions by city.

ee also

* Football in Italy
* Italian football league system

ources

*Almanacco Illustrato del Calcio - La Storia 1898–2004, Panini Edizioni, Modena, September 2005

References and notes

External links

*en icon [http://www.figc.it/english/default.htm Italian Football Association]
*it icon [http://www.lega-calcio.it/ Official national league website]