Treviso

Early years and the post-war decades (1909–1993)

Football was first played in Treviso in 1896, when three local gymnastics societies took part in an interprovincial competition, and several teams formed in the city over the following decade. Foot-Ball Club Treviso was founded in 1909, though for some years its fixtures were friendlies rather than league matches, and the city's best players left to play elsewhere. Treviso entered Promozione in 1914 and, after the First World War, won the Coppa Appiani in 1919, beating Padova, Bologna and Modena. A first international fixture followed in June 1922, a 4–0 home win over Meteor Vienna.

The club moved to its present ground in 1933 and was renamed Associazione Calcio Treviso two years later, entering Serie C in 1936. Promotion to Serie B was approached several times before the Second World War and achieved in 1950. Nereo Rocco took charge for the 1950–51 season and led Treviso to sixth place the following year, the best finish in the club's history, and to ninth in his final season. Relegation followed in 1955, after which Treviso spent three decades in Serie C, with occasional spells in Serie D.

A further relegation in 1985 was followed by repeated financial difficulties, and in 1991 the club dropped into the Campionato Interregionale, where it remained for four years. It won the Coppa Italia Dilettanti in 1993, beating Imolese in the final, but was wound up that summer with its debts unresolved.

Treviso FBC 1993 and the rise to Serie A (1993–2009)

A new club, FBC Treviso 1993, was admitted to Serie D in the summer of 1993 under the businessman Giovanni Caberlotto, and rose three divisions in four years under Giuseppe Pillon to reach Serie B for the first time in more than four decades. Caberlotto did not see it: he died on 3 March 1997, weeks before promotion was secured. Four seasons in the second tier followed before relegation to Serie C1 in 2001, a year also marked by the abuse of Akeem Omolade, an 18-year-old Nigerian forward, by sections of Treviso's own support on his debut; his teammates took the field at a later match with their faces blacked in solidarity, and the episode drew national attention.

Treviso won promotion back to Serie B at the second attempt in 2003, taking the Serie C Supercup on penalties against Avellino in the same season, and two years later reached the promotion play-offs under a returning Pillon, losing to Perugia in the semi-finals. Promotion arrived anyway that August, off the field: with Genoa demoted for match-fixing and Torino unable to meet their financial obligations, Treviso and Ascoli were readmitted to Serie A in their place.

The club's only season in the top flight was shaped by the manner of its arrival. A squad assembled in a matter of days lost 3–0 at Inter Milan on the opening day and played its early home fixtures in Padua, the Stadio Omobono Tenni having been judged unfit for Serie A, before a parliamentary dispensation allowed a return to the city. Three coaches took charge during the campaign, none of them able to lift the team off the bottom of the table, and relegation was confirmed with five matches to play by defeat at Messina on 9 April 2006. Treviso finished bottom with 21 points from 38 games, and were classified 19th only when the Calciopoli verdicts placed Juventus below them.

Back in Serie B, Treviso survived on the final day of 2006–07 with a win at Spezia and again in 2007–08, finishing 17th, but the accounts were deteriorating: losses of €4.17 million in a single season followed a recapitalisation of more than €7.5 million, the club increasingly depended on selling players, and two prospective takeovers collapsed once the scale of the debts became clear. The 2008–09 season began in mourning for the midfielder Gionata Mingozzi, killed in a road accident, and with registration delayed over unpaid tax and a three-point deduction imposed for a contractual breach dating from the promotion of 2005. Relegation was confirmed on 11 May 2009 with three matches remaining.

On 11 July 2009, the president Ettore Setten announced that the club could not be saved and would not register for Lega Pro Prima Divisione; an application two days later to enter Serie D instead, with a new company and new owners to follow, was refused by the FIGC.

Refoundation and second exclusion (2009–2013)

For most of the summer it appeared that Treviso would field no team at all. A place was found only on 1 September, when the city's mayor announced that a newly formed company, ASD Treviso 2009, would enter the regional Eccellenza—four divisions below the Serie B side of the previous season. After a seventh-place finish and a change of owner, the club was readmitted to Serie D in August 2010 and won the division at the first attempt under Diego Zanin, taking the title with a match to spare after a season-long contest with Venezia. Renamed Football Club Treviso in June 2011, it went up again twelve months later as champions of Seconda Divisione, restoring professional football to the city three years after the collapse.

The recovery did not last. Treviso were excluded from the 2012–13 Lega Pro Prima Divisione over their finances and reinstated only on appeal, lost Zanin, and spent the first half of the season bottom of the table. By January the club was the subject of a boardroom dispute in which rival claimants to the presidency dismissed and reinstated the manager in turn. Relegation followed, and when the Lega Pro ruled the club's registration for the next season inadmissible and no appeal was lodged, Treviso were expelled from professional football for the second time in four years.