Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli, commonly referred to as Napoli (pronounced [ˈnaːpoli]), is a professional Italian football club based in Naples, Campania. The club plays in Serie A, the top flight of Italian football where it is currently competing in the 2015–16 season. One of the more successful clubs in Italian football, they have won 12 domestic trophies; the Serie A twice, in 1986–87 and 1989–90 and runners up 5 times, they also have won the Coppa Italia five times and been runners up 4 times, and the Supercoppa Italiana twice. On the European stage they have won the UEFA Cup in 1988–89.
Napoli is also the most successful football club in Southern Italy and the 4th most supported football club in Italy after Juventus and the two Milanese clubs Internazionale and Milan. The club is ranked as the5th most valuable football club in Serie A behind Internazionale, Roma, Milan and Juventus in terms of annual revenue, generating €125.5 million during the 2015 financial year.
Napoli is also one of the associate members of the European Club Association, an organisation that replaced the previous G-14 which consists of major football clubs in Europe. According to Deloitte Football Money League, as of 2014, Napoli is ranked as the 15th richest football club in the world.
Napoli is also ranked the 8th best club in European Football and the 2nd best club in Italy according to UEFA rankings as of January 2016 passing clubs like Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain which is a huge improvement from the 2010-2011 season, when Napoli was only ranked the 106th best club in Europe.
The club has one of the highest incomes and largest fanbases in the world. Napoli was named the seventeenth most valuable association football club in the world by Forbes, valued at $353 million, in 2015 and one of only 7 of the top 20 most valuable clubs in the world to have no debt. As of 2015 Napoli had an annual turnover of $224 million which would be the 3rd highest in Serie A and the 16th highest turnover in the world for a football club.
The club is famous around the world for being the club where Diego Maradona played his football and became one of the greatest footballers of all time. Napoli is also the club where Ballon d’Or and World Cup winner Fabio Cannavaro started his career and has been home to many other great players, including Gianfranco Zola.
The official anthem of the club is “‘O surdato ‘nnammurato”.
According to the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS), Napoli was rated the third best club in the world in 2015.
History
The first club was founded as Naples Foot-Ball & Cricket Club in 1904 by English sailor William Poths and his associate Hector M. Bayon. Neapolitans such as Conforti, Catterina and Amedeo Salsi were also involved, the latter of whom was the club’s first president. The original kit of the club was a sky blue and navy blue striped shirt, with black shorts. Naples’ first match was a 3–2 win against the English crew of the boat Arabik with goals from MacPherson, Scafoglio and Chaudoir. The name of the club was shortened to Naples Foot-Ball Club in 1906.[citation needed]
Early into its existence, the Italian Football Championship was limited to just Northern clubs, so Southern clubs competed against sailors or in cups such as Thomas Lipton’s Lipton Challenge Cup. In the cup competed between Naples and Palermo FBC, Naples won three finals. The foreign contingent at the club broke off in 1912 to form Internazionale Napoli, in time for both club’s debut in the Italian Championship of 1912–13. Though the sides had a keen rivalry in the Campania section, they were not as successful outside of it and a few years after World War I, they merged as Foot-Ball Club Internazionale-Naples, also known as FBC Internaples.[citation needed]
Associazione Calcio Napoli
Under the presidency of Giorgio Ascarelli, the club changed its name to Associazione Calcio Napoli on 23 August 1926. After a poor start, with a sole point in an entire championship, Napoli was readmitted to Serie A’s forerunner National Division by the Italian FA, and began to improve thanks in part to Paraguayan-born Attila Sallustro, who was the first fully fledged hero to the fans. He was a capable goal-scorer and eventually set the all-time goal-scoring record for Napoli, which still stands today.
Napoli entered the Serie A-era under the management of William Garbutt. During his six-year stint, the club would be dramatically transformed, frequently finishing in the top half of the table. This included two third-place finishes during the 1932–33 and 1933–34 seasons, with added notables such as Antonio Vojak, Arnaldo Sentimenti and Carlo Buscaglia. For the years leading up to World War II Napoli went into decline, surviving relegation in 1939–40 by goal average.
Napoli lost a closely contested relegation battle at the end of 1942 and were relegated to Serie B. They moved from Stadio Giorgio Ascarelli to Stadio Arturo Collana and stayed in Serie B until after the war. When play continued, Napoli earned the right to compete in Serie A, but were relegated after two seasons for a bribery scandal. The club bounced back to ensure top flight football at the start of the 1950s. Napoli moved to their new home ground Stadio San Paolo in 1959. Despite erratic league form with highs and lows during this period, including a further relegation and promotion, Napoli had some cup success when they beat SPAL to lift the Coppa Italia in 1962, with goals from Gianni Corelli and Pierluigi Ronzon. Their fourth relegation cut celebrations short the following season.
Napoli on the rise: Maradona era
As the club changed their name to Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli on 25 June 1964 they began to rise up again, gaining promotion in 1964–65. Under the management of former player Bruno Pesaola, they won the Coppa delle Alpi and were back amongst the elite in Serie A, with consistent top five finishes. Napoli came very close to winning the league in1967–68, finishing just behind AC Milan in second place. Some of the most popular players from this period were Dino Zoff, José Altafini, Omar Sívori, and hometown midfielder Antonio Juliano. Juliano would eventually break the appearance records, which still stands today.
The trend of Napoli performing well in the league continued into the 1970s, with third place spots in 1970–71 and 1973–74. Under the coaching of former player Luís Vinício, this gained them entry into the early UEFA Cupcompetitions; in 1974–75 they reached the third round knocking out Porto 2–0 on the way. During the same season, Napoli finished second in Serie A; just two points behind champions Juventus. Solid performances from locally born players such as Bruscolotti, Juliano and Esposito were relied upon during this period, coupled with goals from Giuseppe Savoldi.
After beating Southampton 4–1 on aggregate to lift the Anglo-Italian League Cup, Napoli were entered into the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup for 1976–77, where they reached the semi-finals, losing 2–1 on aggregate toAnderlecht. The club won their second Coppa Italia trophy in 1975–76, knocking out Milan and Fiorentina en route, before beating rivals Verona 4–0 in the final. In terms of the Italian league, Napoli were still very much a consistent top six side for much of the late 1970s. Even into the earliest two seasons of the 1980s, the club were performing respectably with a third-place finish in 1980–81, however by 1983 they had slipped dramatically and were involved in relegation battles. Napoli broke the world transfer record fee, turning to Diego Maradona with a €12 million deal from Barcelona on 30 June 1984. The squad was gradually re-built, with the likes of Ciro Ferrara, Salvatore Bagni, andFernando De Napoli filling the ranks. The rise up the tables was gradual, by 1985–86, they had a third-place finish under their belts, but better was yet to come. The 1986–87 season was the landmark in Napoli’s history; they won the double, securing the Serie A title by three points and then beating Atalanta 4–0 to lift the Coppa Italia.
Because a mainland Southern Italian team had never won the league before, this turned Diego Maradona into a cultural, social and borderline religious icon for Neapolitans, which stretched beyond the realms of just football.
The club were unsuccessful in the European Cup in the following season and finished runners-up in Serie A. However, Napoli were entered into the UEFA Cup for 1988–89 and won their first major European title. Juventus,Bayern Munich, and PAOK were defeated on the way to the final, where Napoli beat Stuttgart 5–4 on aggregate, with two goals from Careca and one each from Maradona, Ferrara and Alemão.
Napoli added their second Serie A title in 1989–90, beating Milan by two points in the title race. However, this was surrounded by less auspicious circumstances as Napoli were awarded two points for a game, when inBergamo, an Atalanta fan threw a £100 lira coin at Alemão’s head. A controversial set of events set off at the 1990 World Cup, when Maradona made comments pertaining to North-South inequality in the country and therisorgimento, asking Neapolitans to root for Argentina in the semi-finals against Italy in Naples.
| “ | I don’t like the fact that now everybody is asking Neapolitans to be Italian and to support their national team. Naples has always been marginalised by the rest of Italy. It is a city that suffers the most unfair racism. | ” |
| — Diego Armando Maradona, July 1990 | ||
San Paolo was the only stadium during the competition where the Argentine National Anthem wasn’t jeered, Maradona bowed to the Napoli fans at the end and his country went on to reach the final. However, after the final the Italian Football Federation forced Maradona to take a doping test, which he failed testing positive for cocaine; both Maradona and Napoli staff later claimed it was a revenge plot for events at the World Cup. Maradona was banned for 15 months and would never play for the club again. The club still managed to win the Supercoppa Italiana that year, with a record 5–1 victory against Juventus, but it would be their last major trophy for 22 years. In the European Cup however, they went out in the second round.
Decline and rebirth
Though the club finished fourth during the 1991–92 season, Napoli gradually went into decline after that season, both financially and on the field. Players such as Gianfranco Zola, Daniel Fonseca, Ciro Ferrara and Careca had all departed by 1994. Nonetheless, Napoli did manage to qualify for the 1994–95 UEFA Cup, reaching the third round and in 1996–97, Napoli appeared at the Coppa Italia final, but lost 3–1 to Vicenza. Napoli’s league form had dropped lower, and relegation to Serie B came at the end of 1997–98when they recorded only three wins all season.
The club returned to Serie A after gaining promotion in the 1999–2000 season, though after a closely contested relegation battle, they were relegated immediately back down the following season. They failed to gain promotion following this and slipped further down. The failed 2001–02 Serie B campaign was costly, the cost of production was €70,895,838, just about €10 million fewer than in 2000–01 Serie A, heavily due to the high amortisation of the player asset (€33,437,075). However value of production was just €21,183736 (excluding player profit) and the net loss was €28,856,093 that season. Net asset on 30 June 2002 was €2,166,997, already including about €20 million recapitalisation. The club once quoted the law “21 February 2003 No.27” to lower the amortisation expense by extending the amortisation period beyond the contract length of players to 10-year (UEFA ruled the Italian special law was not lawful and all club should use IFRS standards, thus causing a re-capitalization crisis in 2006), which some players contract (with a total residual accounting value of €46,601,225) was amortise in special way for €4,660,123 only and the rest for €1,659,088 in 2002–03, however the cost of production was still exceed the value of production for €19,071,218 in 2002–03. By August 2004, Napoli was declared bankrupt with debts[clarification needed] estimated up to €70 million. To secure football in the city, film producer Aurelio De Laurentiis refounded the club under the name Napoli Soccer, as they were not allowed to use their old name. FIGCplaced Napoli in Serie C1, where they missed out on promotion after losing 2–1 in play-offs to local rivals Avellino in 2004–05 Serie C1.
Despite the fact that Napoli were playing in such a low division, they retained higher average attendances than most of the Serie A clubs, breaking the Serie C attendance record with 51,000 at one game. The following season, they secured promotion to Serie Band De Laurentiis bought back the club’s history, restoring its name to Società Sportiva Calcio Napoli in May 2006. After just one season back in Serie B, they were promoted on the final day, along with fellow sleeping giants Genoa. Napoli finished the season placed eighth in the Serie A, enough to secure a place in the Intertoto Cup third round.
The 2008–09 season saw Napoli qualify for the UEFA Cup via the Intertoto Cup. The team was eliminated in the first round, however, by Portuguese team Benfica. At the domestic level, Napoli made a very impressive start, proposing as one of the main candidates for a Champions League spot; results and performances, however, quickly declined in mid-season, causing Napoli to fall down to 11th place in the league table, which lead to the dismissal of manager Edy Reja in March 2009, with former Italy manager Roberto Donadoni being appointed as his replacement.
Despite reinforcements in the summer transfer window, Napoli began the 2009–10 season with a number of poor results. After a 2–1 loss to Roma in October 2009, Donadoni was relieved of his duties and replaced by former Sampdoria manager Walter Mazzarri. Under Mazzarri, Napoli climbed up the table, finishing in sixth place to qualify for a Europa League spot. Napoli, under Mazzarri’s guide and reinforced by players such as Edinson Cavani, spent part of the 2010–11 season in the second place, finishing third and qualifying directly to the group phase of the 2011–12 UEFA Champions League.
In the 2011–12 season, Napoli ended in fifth place in Serie A, but managed to defeat unbeaten champions Juventus in the Stadio Olimpico to win the Coppa Italia for the fourth time in the club’s history, 25 years after their last cup win. Star striker Edinson Cavaniscored from a penalty kick in the 63rd minute and Marek Hamšík decided the game in the 83rd minute. Napoli also had a successful season in the Champions League, its first participation in the European Cup since the 1990–91 season. The team finished second in its group behind Bayern Munich, and ahead of Manchester City, progressing to the round of 16, where it was knocked out by eventual winners Chelsea.
In 2012–13, Napoli finished in second place in Serie A, the club’s best performance since winning the 1989–90 Scudetto. Edinson Cavani finished as top scorer in the division with 29 goals, which resulted in him being sold toParis Saint-Germain for a club record fee of £57 million.
In the 2013 close-season, Walter Mazzarri left Napoli to become coach of Internazionale, and was replaced by Spaniard Rafael Benítez, who became the club’s first foreign coach since Zdeněk Zeman in 2000. The money from selling Cavani went towards signing three Real Madrid players – Gonzalo Higuaín, Raúl Albiol and José Callejón – and other players including Dries Mertens and Pepe Reina. They finished the season by winning the 2014 Coppa Italia Final, their fifth title in the tournament, with a 3–1 win against Fiorentina with two goals from Lorenzo Insigne and another from Mertens, as well as qualifying for the Champions League by finishing 3rd in Serie A.
On 1 December 2015 in the 2015–16 season, a 2–1 home win over league leaders Inter Milan sent Napoli to the top of Serie A for the first time in 25 years.
On 10 January 2016 an away 5-1 victory against Frosinone made Napoli the champion of the first half of 2015-16 Serie A season for the first time since the 1989-90 season, thanks to Sassuolo’s 1-0 win against Inter Milan in Giuseppe Meazza.
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source:https://en.wikipedia.org