Serie A Femminile

The Serie A (Italian pronunciation: [ˈsɛːrje ˈa]^[1]), also known as the Serie A Women Athora for sponsorship reasons, is the highest league of women's football in Italy. Established in 1968, it has been run by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) since the 2018–19 season, and currently features 12 teams.

The most successful club in the league's history is Torres, who have won seven times. The current Serie A champions are Juventus who have won their sixth title. As of the 2022–23 edition, the Serie A is ranked fifth in the UEFA women's coefficient, and the top three teams qualify for the UEFA Women's Champions League.^[2]

The Serie A became fully-professional from the 2022–23 season, removing the salary cap and allowing teams to pay their players a higher wage.^[3] Women's footballers became the first female athletes in Italy to be fully professional.^[4][5] The number of teams also decreased from 12 to 10, though re-increased to 12 teams in the 2025–26 season.

In February 1933, at Via Stoppani 12 in Milan, the Gruppo Femminile Calcistico was founded, considered the first organized women's football club in Italy. Initially, the players wore skirts on the pitch. The initiative lasted approximately nine months. After the publication of a photographic report in the newspaper Calcio Illustrato,^[6] other women's teams began to emerge in the country. Reacting to the sport's growing popularity, the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI)^[7] prohibited women from participating in tournaments and friendly matches, redirecting the athletes to track and field.

In 1946, two teams were founded in Trieste: Triestina and San Giusto. In 1950, in Naples, several clubs created the Associazione Italiana Calcio Femminile (AICF), which remained active until its dissolution in 1959. Despite the entity's dissolution, the sport continued to be played unofficially.

In 1965, in Milan, Valeria Rocchi founded two teams with the support of the then-president of Internazionale, Angelo Moratti. During the fourth Inter Club-Pepsi Cola tournament, held at the Arena Civica in Milan, an exhibition match named Bologna versus Inter was played. The teams consisted of young Milanese girls aged between 14 and 17, with Valeria Rocchi acting as both coach and referee. The event received positive coverage in the press and attracted public attention. In September of the same year, a rematch was held with more than a thousand spectators in attendance.

In 1968, the Federazione Italiana Calcio Femminile (FICF, also known as the Viareggio Federation, in reference to the leader of the promoting committee, Mazzoni) was established. The first Italian championship was organized under the entity's management, structured in two groups of five teams. The final, held in Pisa, resulted in Associazione Calcio Femminile Genova winning the title by defeating Roma.

On 31 January 1970, a split occurred when ten clubs left the FICF to found the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio Femminile (FFIGC), under the presidency of lawyer Giovanni Trabucco. In the following season, Trabucco was succeeded by Aleandro Franchi. In 1970, Trabucco's administration had requested recognition of the entity by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) for eventual affiliation with CONI. However, a commission appointed by the FIGC, chaired by Franco Bettinelli, issued an unfavorable opinion on the request.

In 1972, the two federations merged under the name Federazione Femminile Italiana Unificata Autonoma Giuoco Calcio. However, a dissident group of about fifteen clubs, led by Paolo Savini, recreated the Viareggio Federation under the acronym FIGCF. This federation organized a parallel championship restricted to clubs from Piedmont, Lombardy, Liguria, and Tuscany.

Reunification took place the following season, with the return of the dissident clubs to the main federation. In January 1973, during an Extraordinary Assembly, the entity removed the term "Autonoma" (Autonomous) from its name, becoming the Federazione Femminile Italiana Unificata Giuoco Calcio (FFIUGC). On 16 February 1975, it adopted the name Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio Femminile (FIGCF), operating under this nomenclature until its official integration into the FIGC in 1986.

Following the 1972 unification, a qualification championship was organized with 45 teams divided into four groups. In 1973, Serie B ceased to be a strictly regional competition and became a national championship, being called Serie A Interregionale (Inter-regional Serie A) during its first three years.

During its period of independence from the FIGC, the FFIGC recorded an expansion in the number of clubs and competitions. In 1979, a regional championship for youth categories (beginners) was created, which was transformed into Serie D in 1982.

The inclusion of women's football into the structure of the FIGC formally occurred in 1986, when the sport was housed under the Lega Nazionale Dilettanti (LND). Starting from the 1986–87 season, commissions were created to regulate the sport, and in 1989 Maurizio Foroni was appointed as the sector's first president.

On 1 May 1997, the Serie A and B teams elected Natalina Ceraso Levati as president of the Women's Football Division. The national structure was then composed of a single-group Serie A (16 teams) and a Serie B divided into three groups (14 teams each). The Supercoppa Italiana was established to be contested between the winner of the Coppa Italia and the Serie A champion. In 1998, Serie B was restructured into four groups, adopting a playoff system to determine the three promotion spots to Serie A. During the same period, regional Under-14 tournaments were implemented to foster the sport's development.

At the 2009 federal assembly, Giancarlo Padovan was elected President of the Women's Football Division.

Starting from the 2018–19 season, the FIGC took over the direct management of the Serie A and Serie B championships. The LND filed a legal appeal in an attempt to retain the organization of the tournaments, but the request was rejected by the sports courts.^[8]

Although Serie A Femminile traces its origins back to the 1960s, the players maintained the status of amateur athletes for decades. The transition process towards professionalism gained momentum in 2019, driven by the Italian national team's campaign at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, where they reached the quarter-finals. The movement was supported by FIGC President Gabriele Gravina. Later that year, the Senate of the Republic passed an amendment to the 2020 Budget Law, establishing the legal basis for female athletes to become professionals.

On 25 June 2020, the FIGC formally announced that Serie A Femminile would achieve professional status by 2022.^[9]

The change in status altered the financial structure and labor rights of the athletes. Previously, there was no standardized salary, and the maximum compensation was capped at €30,658 gross per season. Additional compensations were restricted to travel stipends, flat-rate reimbursements, and performance bonuses, which could not exceed €61.97 per day (for up to five days a week). With professionalisation, the salary cap was abolished, and a minimum annual salary of €26,000 was established for players and coaching staff. Furthermore, the athletes gained access to labor and social security guarantees, including healthcare, pensions, maternity leave, and unemployment benefits, providing greater security in cases of injury or career termination.

Solidifying this transition, starting from the 2022–23 season, the Serie A championship adopted a new format, reducing the number of participants from 12 to 10 teams, and officially began its professional era.^[10]

A year later, the FIGC reorganized women's football into two distinct divisions:^[11] the Divisione Serie A Femminile Professionistica, responsible for organizing Serie A, the Coppa Italia, the Supercoppa Italiana, and the Campionato Primavera 1; and the Divisione Serie B Femminile, in charge of managing Serie B and the Campionato Primavera 2.

One of the major steps the Italian Olympic Committee is taking to promote equality is encouraging the promotion of women in management roles. One of the ways they plan to do so is by increasing the number of women and girls that participate in sports, and finding more areas for women to become more involved. Furthermore, the Serie A Femminile teams are required to hire people that will ensure the promotion of equality by managing the “women’s sectors” of the clubs.

There are two phases per season. 10 teams face one another in a round-robin tournament during the first phase, with 18 total home and away matchdays. The top 5 teams qualify to the championship round (poule scudetto) and the bottom 5 teams compete in the relegation round, in phase two. Both groups of teams begin the second phase with points earned during the first phase. In the second phase, the teams within the group participate in another round-robin tournament, totaling 10 additional home and away matchdays, this time including two rest sessions per team. The season concludes with the end of the second phase, when the first ranked team in the championship round is considered the winner of Italy, as well as the first and second ranked teams qualify for the UEFA Women's Champion League. The last-ranked team in the relegation round is directly relegated to the Serie B, and the second-to-last ranked team in Serie A relegation round plays the second-ranked Serie B team to try to secure a place in the following Serie A season.

The following ten clubs are competing in the 2025–26 season.

Below is a list of previous champions, including those belonging to several independent federations under which the Serie A title was contested before entering the FIGC. Since 1968 all championships were defined as "Serie A":

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