Juventus FC
The fact that Italy's most decorated, revered and reviled club have played their home matches on a dozen different grounds is significant. True, they stayed at the Stadio Olimpico from 1933 until 1990 and 1996 to 2011 – and they have now broken new ground for Italian clubs by building and owning their own stadium – but the truth is, they could sell tickets almost wherever they play.
Every other weekend, the Juventus Stadium is besieged by coaches hired by fan clubs from all over Italy. In fact, Juve's biggest fanbase is in the south, where many of the club's finest home-grown players have come from, and La Vecchia Signora (the Old Lady) could play home games almost anywhere in Italy – apart perhaps from Florence, home of grudge club Fiorentina.
Why the grudge? The Viola lost the league title in 1981-82 thanks to a disputed penalty awarded to the Zebras; that, along with the spot-kick that won Juve's first, tainted, European Cup at the Heysel Stadium against Liverpool in 1985 and the apparent favouritism shown towards them in countless title run-ins, has earned Juve a reputation as the club of the establishment – and the dislike of every other club's fans.
Bankrolled by the Fiat-owning Agnelli family between 1905 and 2003 (when Gianni Agnelli died), Juventus enjoyed their most recent successful recent spell in the 1990s, winning three Serie A titles between 1995 and 1998 while reaching three Champions League finals. It came under scrutiny when club doctor Riccardo Agricola was sentenced to 22 months in jail for supplying players with the banned blood-boosting hormone EPO, and the accompanying court case hardly helped Juve's negative image.
Then things got worse. In 2006 Juventus, and in particular their fixer and transfer broker 'Lucky' Luciano Moggi, were at the centre of the Calciopoli match-fixing scandal. Turns out Moggi had been hand-picking Juve-friendly referees, thus confirming previous suspicions of favouritism.
Juve received the harshest punishment of all five clubs involved and were stripped of their last two scudetti, removed from the Champions League and relegated to Serie B with a 17-point deduction. Moggi himself was banned from football for five years.
Juventus lost many star players, although some of the notable big names who stayed included Gianluigi Buffon, Alessandro del Piero and Pavel Nedved. They bounced straight back into Serie A and haven't been out of the European places since.
THE STADIUM
Opened in September 2011 with a match against Notts County (who else?), the Juventus Stadium is the first ground in Serie A to be built and owned by a club: Italian stadia are usually owned by local councils.
It's built on the (out-of-town) site of the Stadio Delle Alpi, where the club played its home games between 1990 and 1996. Built for Italia 90, the Delle Alpi was a curiously sterile affair, out of town and unloved
by all, ideal neither for football (because of the running track) or
athletics (because of the lack of a warm-up track).
From 1933 to 1990, both Turin clubs had played at the city's Olympic stadium (known at various times as the Stadio Olimpico, the Stadio Comunale Vittorio Pozzo and, er, the Stadio Benito Mussolini) – until Italia 90 required the building of the Stadio Delle Alpi. But nobody liked that so after the old place was in its turn refurbished for the 2006 Winter Olympics, both clubs moved back – until the Old Lady got her own place at last.
Club address Str. Com. di Altessano 131, 10151 Turin
Telephone 0039 011-65631
Website www.juventus.com
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