During this season, Juventus defended his title against 19 other teams including 3 promoted to Serie B.
Five slots for European competitions are awarded through the championship (2 direct places in the Champions League from 2015 to 2016, 1 dam, one direct place in the Europa League and one in the third qualifying round). The other site is that of the European winner of the Coppa Italia which is qualifying for the Europa League. The last 3 championship are relegated to Serie .
Serie A (Italian pronunciation: , also called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since the 1929–30 season. It had been organized by Lega Calcio until 2010, but a new league, the Lega Serie A, was created for the 2010–11 season. Serie A is regarded as one of the best football leagues in the world and it is often depicted as the most tactical national league. Serie A is the world's second strongest national league according to IFFHS and has produced the highest number of European Cup finalists: Italian clubs have reached the final of the competition on a record twenty-six different occasions, winning the title twelve times. Serie A is ranked 4th among European leagues according to UEFA's league coefficient behind La Liga, Premier League and the Bundesliga, which is based on the performance of Italian clubs in the Champions League and the Europa League during the last five years.Serie A led the UEFA ranking from 1986 until 1999.
Ranking
The ranking is based on the scale of conventional Points (win 3 points, draw 1, defeat to 0).
For the tie, first taking into account the direct confrontations points, then goal difference in direct confrontations, and the difference in overall goals, then the number of goals scored and finally the number of point of Fair- Play.
History
Serie A, as it is structured today, began in 1929. From 1898 to 1922 the competition was organised into regional groups. Because of ever growing teams attending regional championships, FIGC split the CCI (Italian Football Confederation) in 1921. When CCI teams rejoined the FIGC created two interregional divisions renaming Categories into Divisions and splitting FIGC sections into two North-South leagues. In 1926 due to internal crises FIGC changed internal settings adding southern teams to the national divisions which lead to 1929-30 final settlement. No title was awarded in 1927 after Torino were stripped of the championship by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC). Torino were declared champions in the 1948-49 season following a plane crash near the end of the season in which the entire team was killed.The Serie A Championship title is often referred to as the scudetto (small shield) because since the 1924–25 season the winning team will bear a small coat of arms with the Italian tricolour on their strip in the following season. The most successful club is Juventus with 31 championships, followed by both Milan and Internazionale . From 2004–05 onwards an actual trophy was awarded to club on the pitch after the last turn of the championship. The trophy, called Coppa Campioni d'Italia, is official since the 1960–61 season, but between 1961 and 2004 it was consigned to the winning clubs at the head office of the Lega Nazionale Professionisti.
On 30 April 2009, Serie A announced a split from Serie B. Nineteen of the twenty clubs voted in favour of the move in an argument over television rights. Relegation-threatened Lecce voted against. Maurizio Beretta, the former head of Italy's employers' association, became president of the new league.
Non-EU players
Unlike La Liga, which imposed a quota on the number of non-EU players on each club, Serie A clubs could sign as many non-EU players as available on domestic transfer. But since the 2003–04 season a quota has been imposed on each of the clubs limiting the number of non-EU, non-EFTA and non-Swiss players who may be signed from abroad each season, following provisional measures[28] introduced in the 2002–03 season, which allowed Serie A & B clubs to sign only one non-EU player in the 2002 summer transfer window.
In the middle of the 2000–01 season, the old quota system was abolished, which no longer limited each team to having more than 5 non-EU players and using no more than 3 in each match. Concurrent with the abolishment of the quota, FIGC had investigated footballers that used fake passports. Alberto and Warley, Alejandro Da Silva and Jorginho Paulista of Udinese, Fábio Júnior and Gustavo Bartelt of Roma, Dida of Milan, Álvaro Recoba of Inter, Thomas Job, Francis Zé, Jean Ondoa of Sampdoria, Jeda and Dede of Vicenza were banned in July 2001, for 6 months to 1 year. However, most of the bans were subsequently reduced.
The number of non-EU players was reduced from 265 in 2002–03 season to 166 in 2006–07 season.[33] It also included players got EU status after their countries joined the EU (see 2004 and 2007 enlargement), which made players such as Adrian Mutu, Valeri Bojinov, Marek Jankulovski and Marius Stankevičius no longer non-EU players.
The rule underwent minor changes in August 2004, June 2005, June 2006. and June 2007.
Since the 2008–09 season, 3 quotas have been awarded to clubs that do not have non-EU players in their squad (previously only newly promoted clubs could have 3 quotas); clubs that have one non-EU player have 2 quotas. Those clubs that have 2 non-EU players, are awarded 1 quota and 1 conditional quota, which is awarded after: 1) Transferred 1 non-EU player abroad, or 2) Release 1 non-EU player as free agent, or 3) A non-EU player received EU nationality. Clubs with 3 or more non-EU players, have 2 conditional quotas, but releasing two non-EU players as free agent, will only have 1 quota instead of 2.[39] Serie B and Lega Pro clubs cannot sign non-EU player from abroad, except those followed the club promoted from Serie D.
Big clubs with many foreigners, usually borrow quotas from other clubs that have few foreigners or no foreigners, in order to sign more non-EU players. Adrian Mutu joined Juventus via Livorno in 2005, at that time Romania was not a member of the EU. Other cases include Júlio César, Victor Obinna and Maxwell who joined Internazionale from Chievo (first two) and Empoli respectively.
On 2 July 2010, the above conditional quota reduced back to 1, however if a team did not have any non-EU players, that team could still sign up to 3 non-EU players.
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