|
Fiorentina
|
Fiorentina Information
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Fiorentina History
|
ACF Fiorentina, formerly
Associazione Calcio Fiorentina, is an Italian football club
based in Florence (Firenze). The club traditional colors were
originally red and white but were changed to purple and white in
1928; since then, the club has been generally known as "la
Viola" (the purple ones).
The club was founded on August 26, 1926 by the merger of
Libertas and Club Sportivo Firenze. The club won its first
trophy in 1939-40 with the Coppa Italia and its first scudetto (Italian
championship) in 1955-1956, the club were runners-up in the four
following seasons. In the 1960-1961 season the club won the
Coppa Italia again and was also successful in Europe, winning
the first Cup Winners' Cup against Rangers.
In the 1960s the club won the Coppa Italia and the Mitropa Cup
in 1966 and were league champions again in 1968-1969. In 1974
Viola won the Anglo-Italian Cup. Success in the Coppa Italia was
repeated in 1975, but from then until the late 1990s the club
was in the doldrums, culminating in a season in Serie B (second
division) in 1993-1994. Upon return to Serie A the club again
proved able in the cup competitions, winning the Coppa Italia
again in 1996 and 2000 and the Italian SuperCoppa.
The club's financial situation was revealed to be poor in mid
2001, the club was unable to pay wages and had debts of around
USD 50 million. The club owner, Vittorio Cecchi Gori, came in
with more money but soon proved to have insufficient resources
to sustain the club. The club was then relegated at the end of
the 2001-2002 season and went into judicially controlled
administration in June 2002. Due to a sort of bankruptcy (sport
companies don't precisely fail in Italy, but can suffer a
similar procedure), the club was refused a place in Serie B for
the 2002-2003 season. The club was then re-established in August
as Florentia Viola with a new owner, Diego Della Valle, and
admitted to Serie C2. In the club's year in Serie C2, it easily
won its regional section, which would normally have led to a
promotion to Serie C1. In the 2003 off-season, the club bought
back the right to use the Fiorentina name, reincorporated as ACF
Fiorentina, and was kicked up to Serie B, skipping Serie C1,
after the Italian Football Federation decided to increase the
number of teams in Serie B from 20 to 24 because of Caso
Catania. The unusual double promotion caused some controversy;
however, Fiorentina ended the 2003-2004 season in sixth, placing
the Viola in a two-legged test match against Perugia (the
15th-place finisher in Serie A) for a position in Serie A. The
Viola completed a remarkable return to Serie A by winning the
test match 2-1 on aggregate.
The club usually plays at the 47,500-seater Communal Stadium
"Artemio Franchi" (previously called Comunale di Firenze, that
replaced in the '30s the "Giovanni Francesco Berta")
Famous players for Fiorentina have included Julinho, Miguel
Montuori, Kurt Hamrin, Giancarlo De Sisti, Giovanni Galli,
Luciano Chiarugi, Roberto Baggio, Gabriel Batistuta, Stefan
Effenberg, Brian Laudrup, Francesco Toldo, Andrei Kanchelskis,
Lorenzo Amoruso, Rui Costa, Predrag Mijatovic, Giancarlo
Antognoni, Enrico Chiesa, and Hidetoshi Nakata. |
|
|
Fiorentina Honours, Trophies & Awards
|
|
- |
|
|
More Italian Soccer Clubs
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
