A brief history

Women’s football has been around for a long time in Italy and there has been a women’s league in every season since 1968.

Enjoying a heyday when the Azzurre* were at their strongest before the advent of the official World Cup, Italian football experienced a few years in the dark, with their finest players playing in a part-time league while attempting to take on the best in the UEFA Women’s Champions League. Then Fiorentina brokered in a new era.

The first professional team in Serie A, La Viola fast claimed their first scudetto, but the team from Tuscany were displaced the following season by Italy’s second professional women’s team, Juventus. AC Milan then bought out the licence of former champions Brescia to join the league. AS Roma did the same with independent Res Roma, while Inter Milan joined Serie B.

2019/20 season

Heading into the new season off of the back of a whirlwind World Cup – Italy’s first for 20 years – things turned sour with two Serie A teams, Atalanta Mozzanica and Chievo Verona opting to withdraw from the season, before it started, and cease operations. The upshot was that the two teams due to go down to the second tier after finishing at the foot of the table, Bari and Orbica, have been given a reprieve.

Who to watch

Although Juventus have been edging the league since their inception, largely in part to having signed a lot of the pre-existing stars of the league, there remains an even spread across a lot of the top half of the table with the likes of Milan and Roma casting their net wider over the summer.