Serie A

Serie A is contested by 20 clubs each season. Every club plays the other 19 twice — once at home, once away — for 38 matches in total. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a draw, and none for a defeat. The club with the most points at the end of the season is the champion and earns the right to wear the scudetto on the team jersey the following year. The clubs finishing in the bottom three positions are relegated to Serie B, the second tier.

The league has been held continuously since 1929-30, with the only break during World War II. The competition was preceded by earlier formats of the Italian Football Championship dating back to 1898, run through regional and inter-regional groups before the modern round-robin Serie A was established. The Italian Football Federation officially recognises the pre-1929 champions alongside the Serie A titles, so the all-time tally for each club includes both eras.

The season usually runs from mid-August to late May, with matches played most weekends and selected fixtures moved to Friday, Monday or other slots for television, European competitions and calendar congestion. Serie A does not always have a fixed winter break, so the exact rhythm of the season can vary from year to year.

For most league positions, clubs level on points are separated first by head-to-head record, then head-to-head goal difference, then overall goal difference, then goals scored. The main exceptions are the title and the final relegation place: if two clubs finish level in either of those decisive positions, Serie A can use a play-off rather than deciding the issue purely by head-to-head record or goal difference. If more than two clubs are tied, the head-to-head mini-table is used to identify the teams involved in the play-off.

The three Serie A clubs finishing in the bottom three positions at the end of the season are relegated to Serie B. Serie A does not use a regular end-of-season relegation play-off, but a play-off can be used if clubs finish level on points around the final relegation place. The clubs that replace them come up from Serie B: the top two finishers are promoted automatically, with the third promotion place usually decided by a play-off involving the clubs finishing from third down to eighth, depending on the points gaps in the Serie B table.

The financial gap between Serie A and Serie B is significant, with Serie A clubs receiving considerably more from the league's collective broadcasting deal than Serie B clubs do. The gap has been a source of debate in Italian football for years, with the league exploring various structural changes to keep more competition in the league and to support relegated clubs financially. Several major Italian clubs have spent time in Serie B across the modern era, including Juventus after the 2006 Calciopoli scandal.

Serie A normally receives four Champions League league-phase places. It can receive a fifth place when Italy finishes among UEFA's top two associations for that season's European Performance Spots, but that extra place changes year by year and is not guaranteed. The next-best Serie A finishers below the Champions League places qualify for the Europa League and the Conference League.

The Coppa Italia winner qualifies for the Europa League. If the cup winner has already qualified for Europe through their Serie A finish, the place usually passes to the next-best Serie A finisher not already in European competition. The typical Italian allocation in a given year is four or five Champions League places, one or two Europa League places, and one Conference League place — usually six or seven clubs in Europe.

The first organised Italian football championship was held in 1898, run through regional groups and a final knockout between the regional winners. The competition was reformatted several times across the early 20th century before being reorganised into the modern Serie A format for the 1929-30 season. Internazionale (then known as Ambrosiana-Inter under the Italian-only naming required by the political climate of the time) won the inaugural Serie A title.

The competition was dominated by Torino in the 1940s — the Il Grande Torino team ended tragically in the 1949 Superga air disaster, when the aircraft carrying the squad crashed into a hillside on its return from a European friendly. The team had won five consecutive Italian league titles. The post-war era saw Juventus, Internazionale, and AC Milan emerge as the three dominant Italian clubs, with sustained periods of dominance for each across the following decades. The 2006 Calciopoli scandal stripped Juventus of two titles and reshaped the modern competitive landscape, although the basic competition structure has remained intact.