Serie A

The Serie A (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsɛːrje ˈa]), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest level of the Italian football league system. Established in the 1929–30 season, it restructured the existing Italian Football Championship, which had been played since 1898, into a national round-robin format alongside Serie B. It functions under a promotion and relegation system with Serie B.

The league was organised by the Direttorio Divisioni Superiori until 1943, the Lega Calcio from 1946 to 2010, and the Lega Serie A ever since. The 29 championships played from 1898 to the formation of the Serie A in 1929 are officially recognised by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) as equal to later Serie A titles.

Similarly the 1945–46 season, played under a temporary format due to World War II, is also recognized as an official championship. Since 1924, the winner of Italy's top division has worn the scudetto emblem on its kit in the following season, and since 1961, the Coppa Campioni d'Italia trophy has been awarded to the Serie A champion.

The Serie A currently ranks second in the UEFA coefficient rankings as of 2024–25 based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons, behind England's Premier League and ahead of Spain's La Liga. The league has consistently ranked among the strongest in global football and has historically attracted top global talent, producing numerous Ballon d'Or winners.

The Serie A is home to several of football's most successful and renowned clubs, including Juventus, Inter Milan, and AC Milan. These teams have played key roles in European football governance and competition history. Juventus, the most decorated club in Italy, has achieved international success across all major UEFA and intercontinental tournaments.

Milan and Inter have also earned significant honors, with Milan joint-third among clubs for most UEFA titles, and Inter achieving a continental treble in 2009–10. Alongside Roma, Lazio, historically Parma and Fiorentina but now replaced by Napoli and Atalanta, these clubs form the "seven sisters" (sette sorelle) of Italian football.

History

Founded in 1898, the Italian championship was initially characterized by amateur organization and limited public interest. During its first two decades, Genoa, the first team to win the Italian championship, and Pro Vercelli were the dominant clubs, winning most of the titles between them. The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) organized the championship from its first edition, except in the 1921–22 season.

After the clubs failed to reach an agreement over the proposed progetto Pozzo [it], two separate tournaments were held, one of which was organized by the Italian Football Confederation (CCI). The following season, the Colombo Compromise [it] ended the split and reunited the competitions.

Until the end of the 1920s, the Italian championship was organized through multiple geographically based groups followed by knockout stages. Since the introduction of the Scudetto patch in 1925, the championship has also commonly been referred to as the "Scudetto" by metonymy. From the 1929–30 season onward, the championship adopted a single round-robin format, which had already been briefly used in the 1909–10 season, and the name Serie A.

The 1930s marked a significant change in Italian football, both in sporting terms and in its social significance. The period saw the emergence of a sustained dominance by three major clubs, Juventus, Inter Milan, and AC Milan, with Juventus becoming the most successful club in Italy and Inter the only club to have remained continuously in the top flight.

Football also attracted an increasingly large following among fans and the mass media, establishing itself as Italy's national sport and overtaking cycling.

The dominance of the Milan–Turin axis was periodically challenged during the interwar period and the postwar period by Bologna and Torino. In subsequent decades, clubs including Fiorentina, Lazio, Roma, and Napoli also won top-flight titles. Roma's 1941–42 championship was the first won by a club from Central or Southern Italy.

Other clubs achieved isolated title successes, including Casale and Novese in the early 20th century, the latter during the split between the FIGC and CCI, and Cagliari, Verona, and Sampdoria in the second half of the 20th century.

Serie A experienced a period of decline following the decision by the Lega Nazionale Professionisti to restrict the signing of players and coaches from foreign leagues after the national team's defeat at the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England. The situation was further affected fourteen years later by the first major Italian football betting scandal.

The decline continued into the early 1980s, when Italy's top division ranked 12th in Europe for the 1981–82 season, behind leagues such as those of Belgium, the Soviet Union, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia.

Serie A subsequently reached a peak in international prestige and visibility around the late 1980s and early 1990s. The high technical level of the teams was reinforced by the gradual reopening of the league to foreign players, while Italian clubs consistently achieved strong results in European competitions. In the 1989–90 season, Italian clubs won all three major European club competitions, and Serie A subsequently occupied first place in the continental rankings for several seasons. In the 1997–98 season, Serie A qualified a record nine teams for European competitions.

Serie A lost its position at the top of the continental rankings from the second half of the 2000s onward, amid structural problems affecting both sporting matters and off-field issues. It has nevertheless remained one of Europe's major domestic leagues, alongside those of Germany, England, and Spain.

Format

For most of Serie A's history, there were 16 or 18 clubs competing at the top level. Since 2004–05, however, there have been 20 clubs in total. One season (1947–48) was played with 21 teams for political reasons, following post-war tensions with Yugoslavia. Below is a complete record of how many teams played in each season throughout the league's history:

• 18 clubs: 1929–1934
• 16 clubs: 1934–1943
• 20 clubs: 1946–1947
• 21 clubs: 1947–1948
• 20 clubs: 1948–1952
• 18 clubs: 1952–1967
• 16 clubs: 1967–1988
• 18 clubs: 1988–2004
• 20 clubs: 2004–present

During the season, which runs from August to May, each club plays each of the other teams twice; once at home and once away, totalling 38 games for each team by the end of the season. Thus, in Italian football a true round-robin format is used. In the first half of the season, called the andata, each team plays once against each league opponent, for a total of 19 games.

In the second half of the season, called the ritorno, the teams play another 19 games, once more against each opponent, in which home and away matches are reversed. The two halves of the season had exactly the same order of fixtures until the 2021–22 season, when an asymmetrical calendar was introduced, following the format of the English, Spanish and French leagues.

Since the 1994–95 season, teams are awarded three points for a win, one point for a draw, and no points for a loss. Prior to this, a win was worth two points. The three lowest-placed teams at the end of the season are relegated to Serie B, and three Serie B teams are promoted to replace them for the next season.

European qualification

In 2023–24, Serie A was ranked as the best league by UEFA coefficient. This was due to a combination of all seven Serie A teams progressing into the knockout stages in European competition, picking up extra coefficient points. Additionally, Atalanta won the Europa League Final and Fiorentina were losing finalists in the UEFA Europa Conference League.

This continued a strong recent record where five of the six European club finals have featured at least one Serie A side over the past two seasons. As a result of this ranking the top 5 clubs in Serie A qualify for the Champions League in 2024.

Tiebreaking

If after all 38 games, two teams are tied on points for either first place or for 17th (the last safety spot), the outcome is decided by a single-legged play-off match. This match consists of 90 minutes of regulation time followed by penalties if necessary (no extra time). The game is to be held at a neutral venue, with the designated "home" team determined by the performance-based criteria listed below.

In cases where there are at least three teams tied for one of these positions, a mini table is created using the same tiebreakers to determine which two teams will play in the decider. For ties concerning all other league positions, the following tiebreakers are applied:

1. Head-to-head points
2. Goal difference of head-to-head games
3. Goal difference overall
4. Higher number of goals scored
5. Play-off game at a neutral venue if relevant to decide European qualification or relegation; otherwise by coin flip

Between 2006–07 and 2021–22, the tiebreakers currently used for all places to decide the scudetto winner if necessary, though this was never needed. Before 2005–06, a play-off would immediately be used if teams were tied for first place, a European qualification spot, or a relegation spot. In some past years, the playoff was a single game at a neutral site while in others it was a two-legged tie decided by aggregate score.

The only time a playoff was used to decide the champion occurred in the 1963–64 season when Bologna and Inter both finished on 54 points. Bologna won the playoff 2–0 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome to win the scudetto. Playoff games have been used on multiple occasions to decide European competition qualifications (most recently in 1999–2000) and relegation (most recently in 2022–23).

Clubs

Before 1929, many clubs competed in the top level of Italian football as the earlier rounds were competed up to 1922 on a regional basis then interregional up to 1929. Below is a list of Serie A clubs who have competed in the competition since it has been a league format (68 in total).

2026–27 season

Clubs

The following 20 clubs compete in the Serie A during the 2026–27 season.

Stadiums

• Atalanta — Bergamo — Stadio di Bergamo — 24,950
• Bologna — Bologna — Stadio Renato Dall'Ara — 38,279
• Cagliari — Cagliari — Sardegna Arena — 16,416
• Como — Como — Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia — 13,602
• Fiorentina — Florence — Stadio Artemio Franchi — 43,147
• Frosinone — Frosinone — Stadio Benito Stirpe — 16,227
• Genoa — Genoa — Stadio Luigi Ferraris — 36,599
• Inter Milan — Milan — Stadio Giuseppe Meazza — 80,018
• Juventus — Turin — Juventus Stadium — 41,507
• Lazio — Rome — Stadio Olimpico — 70,634
• Lecce — Lecce — Stadio Ettore Giardiniero - Via del Mare — 31,533
• AC Milan — Milan — San Siro — 80,018
• Monza — Monza — Stadio Brianteo — 17,102
• Napoli — Naples — Stadio Diego Armando Maradona — 54,726
• Parma — Parma — Stadio Ennio Tardini — 27,906
• Roma — Rome — Stadio Olimpico — 70,634
• Sassuolo — Reggio Emilia — Stadio Città del Tricolore — 21,525
• Torino — Turin — Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino — 27,958
• Udinese — Udine — Stadio Friuli — 25,144
• Venezia — Venice — Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo — 12,048

Maps

Current teams shown in green.

Seasons in Serie A

There are 68 teams that have taken part in 95 Serie A championships in a single round that was played from the 1929–30 season until the 2026–27 season. The teams in bold compete in Serie A currently. The year in parentheses represents the most recent year of participation at this level. Inter Milan is the only team that has played Serie A football in every season.