Juventus

## **Founding**

Juventus was founded as Sport-Club Juventus in late 1897 by pupils from the Massimo d'Azeglio Lyceum school in Turin, among them Eugenio Canfari and Enrico Canfari. It was renamed as Foot-Ball Club Juventus two years later. The club joined the 1900 Italian Football Championship. Juventus played their first Italian Football Championship match on 11 March 1900 in a 1–0 defeat against Torinese.
The Juventus team during the 1905 season in which they won their first league title
In 1904, businessman Marco Ajmone-Marsan revived the finances of Juventus, making it possible to transfer the training field from piazza d'armi to the more appropriate Velodrome Umberto I. During this period, the team wore a pink and black kit. Juventus first won the 1905 Italian Football Championship while playing at their Velodrome Umberto Iground. By this time, the club colours had changed to black and white stripes, inspired by English side Notts County.

There was a split at the club in 1906, after some of the staff considered moving Juve out of Turin. Alfred Dick, the club's president, was unhappy with this, and left with some prominent players to found FBC Torino, which in turn spawned the *Derby della Mole*. Juventus spent much of this period steadily rebuilding after the split, surviving the First World War.

## **Stadiums**

After the first two years (1897 and 1898), during which Juventus played in the Parco del Valentino and Parco Cittadella, their matches were held in the Piazza d'Armi Stadium until 1908, except in 1905 (the first year of the *scudetto*) and in 1906, years in which they played at the Corso Re Umberto.

From 1909 to 1922, Juventus played their internal competitions at Corso Sebastopoli Camp before moving the following year to Corso Marsiglia Camp, where they remained until 1933, winning four league titles. At the end of 1933, they began to play at the new Stadio Benito Mussolini inaugurated for the 1934 World Championships. After the Second World War, the stadium was renamed as Stadio Comunale Vittorio Pozzo. Juventus played home matches at the ground for 57 years, a total of 890 league matches. The team continued to host training sessions at the stadium until July 2003.

From 1990 until the 2005–06 season, the Torinese side contested their home matches at Stadio delle Alpi, built for the 1990 FIFA World Cup, although in very rare circumstances the club played some home games in other stadia such as Renzo Barbera at Palermo, Dino Manuzzi in Cesena and the Stadio Giuseppe Meazzain Milan.

In August 2006, Juventus returned to play in the Stadio Comunale, then known as Stadio Olimpico, after the restructuring of the stadium for the 2006 Winter Olympics onward. In November 2008, Juventus announced that they would invest around €120 million to build a new ground, the Juventus Stadium, on the site of delle Alpi. Unlike the old ground, there is not a running track and instead the pitch is only 7.5 metres away from the stands. The capacity is 41,507. Work began during spring 2009 and the stadium was opened on 8 September 2011, ahead of the start of the 2011–12 season. Since 1 July 2017, the Juventus Stadium is known commercially as the Allianz Stadium of Turin until 30 June 2030.

## **Supporters**

Juventus is the most-supported football club in Italy, with over 12 million fans or *tifosi*, which represent approximately 34% of the total Italian football fans according to a research published in September 2016 by Italian research agency Demos & Pi, as well as one of the most supported football clubs in the world, with over 300 million supporters (41 million in Europe alone), particularly in the Mediterranean countries to which a large number of Italian diaspora have emigrated. The Torinese side has fan clubs branches across the globe.

Demand for Juventus tickets in occasional home games held away from Turin is high, suggesting that Juventus have stronger support in other parts of the country. Juventus is widely and especially popular throughout mainland Southern Italy, Sicily and Malta, leading the team to have one of the largest followings in its away matches, more than in Turin itself.

## **Rivalries**

Juventus have significant rivalries with two main clubs.

Their traditional rivals are fellow Turin club Torino; matches between the two sides are known as the *Derby della Mole* (Turin Derby). The rivalry dates back to 1906 as Torino was founded by break-away Juventus players and staff.

Their most high-profile rivalry is with Inter, another big Serie A club located in Milan, the capital of the neighbouring region of Lombardy. Matches between these two clubs are referred to as the *Derby d'Italia* (Derby of Italy) and the two regularly challenge each other at the top of the league table, hence the intense rivalry. Until the Calciopoliscandal which saw Juventus forcibly relegated, the two were the only Italian clubs to have never played below Serie A. Notably, the two sides are the first and the third most supported clubs in Italy and the rivalry has intensified since the later part of the 1990s; reaching its highest levels ever post-*Calciopoli*, with the return of Juventus to Serie A.

The rivalry with AC Milan is a rivalry between the two most titled and supported teams in Italy. The challenge confronts also two of the clubs with greater basin of supporters as well as those with the greatest turnover and stock market value in the country.[*non-primary source needed*] The match-ups between Milan and Juventus, is regarded as the championship of Serie A, and both teams were often fighting for the top positions of the standings, sometimes even decisive for the award of the title. They also have rivalries with Roma, Fiorentina and Napoli.