Founded in 1909, Bologna is one of the founding members of Serie A and won most of the league titles in the late 1930s. The club could not maintain its previous league dominance after 1964, when it won its last league championship. Bologna, which won two Coppa Italia championships in the 1970s, frequently struggled with relegation in the late 20th century.
The club changed hands several times due to financial problems in the 2000s and early 2010s, but later stabilized under the management of a Canadian consortium led by Joey Saputo.
Bologna is the ninth club with the most seasons in Italian football history, having competed in Serie A for a total of 79 seasons. The club has been playing its home matches at the Renato Dall'Ara Stadium since 1927. The stadium is the tenth largest stadium in Serie A in terms of capacity.
History
Bologna Football Club was founded on 3 October 1909 in Bologna, Italy, under the leadership of Emilio Arnstein. Austrian Arnstein, who was interested in football during his university years in Vienna and Prague, previously founded the club Black Star in Austria with his brother. While Bologna's first president was Swiss Louis Rauch, the club soon began to show success in regional leagues.
Bologna, which won its first official match against Virtus 9-1 in 1910, quickly became one of the noteworthy teams in Northern Italian football.
The club became one of the strongest teams in Italian football, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. It won its first league championship by defeating Genoa in the 1924-25 season, and then won the championships in the 1928-29, 1935-36, 1936-37, 1938-39 and 1940-41 seasons, reaching a total of seven Serie A victories.
II. After World War II, the club's success rate began to decline. Bologna struggled in the middle ranks of the league for many years, but won the last Serie A championship in its history in the 1963-64 season. Thanks to this success, they gained the right to participate in the European Champion Clubs' Cup. In the 1970s, it won important trophies again by winning the Coppa Italia championship twice.
Starting from the 1980s, difficult years began for Bologna. The club was relegated from Serie A several times and even dropped as low as Serie C1. The team, which started to rise again in the late 1990s, achieved success in European cups by winning the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 1998. However, there was an unstable period due to financial problems and management changes.
In 2014, the club was purchased by North American investors and entered a new restructuring process under the leadership of Joey Saputo.
Under Saputo, Bologna became a stable Serie A team again. The team made great progress under the management of Thiago Motta, who was appointed as coach in 2022, and returned to Europe's biggest tournament for the first time since 1964-65, earning the right to participate in the UEFA Champions League in the 2023-24 season.
In the 2024-25 season, Bologna, under the management of Vincenzo Italiano, won the Coppa Italia by defeating Milan 1-0 and achieved its first major trophy after 1974.
Stadium
Bologna plays its home matches at Stadio Renato Dall'Ara. The stadium, Bologna's largest sports facility, is named after Renato Dall'Ara, one of the club's former presidents, who died three days before the Serie A championship final. The capacity of the stadium is 36,532 people.
The Curva Bulgarelli stand at the stadium is named in memory of club legend Giacomo Bulgarelli, who died on 21 February 2009. The other stand, which also includes the section reserved for away fans, is dedicated to coach รrpรกd Weisz, who led Bologna to great success in the pre-war period. Weisz, II. He died in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
Cast
Staff
- As of January 18, 2024
