The first Italian Football Championship was decided in a single day with only four teams competing, three from Turin and one from Genoa. The title was decided using a knock-out format with Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club the inaugural winners. The knock-out format was used until the 1909–10 season, when a league consisting of nine teams was formed. The regular league season was followed by a championship game featuring the first and second place teams. The championship, which had been confined to a single league in the north of Italy, became a national competition in 1929 with the foundation of Serie A and Serie B.

Several times in history, a champion was not named. World wars suspended the official Championship from both 1915 to 1919 and 1943 to 1945 although unofficial championships were contested in both 1916 and 1944. Match fixing prevented a champion being declared in both the 1926–27 and 2004–05 seasons with Torino FC and Juventus FC being stripped of their titles.

History

Italian Football Championship
The first official national football tournament was organised in 1898 by the Italian Football Federation (Italian: Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio, FIGC). This tournament, the first Italian Football Championship, was held in a single day, 8 May 1898, in Turin. Genoa Cricket and Athletics Club were crowned as champions, defeating Internazionale Torino by 3–1 following extra time. In the following years, the tournament was structured into regional groups with the winners of each group participating in a playoff with the eventual winners being declared champions. The format was modified for the 1909–10 season which was played in a league format. Nine clubs participated playing each other both home and away, and with the clubs finishing first and second playing for the championship in a single playoff final. This season was the first victory for Internazionale who defeated Pro Vercelli in the final by 10–3. The 1912–13 season saw the competition nationalised with North and South divisions. In 1916 AC Milan won the Coppa Federale, which for that season was a substitute for the championship, which had been suspended because of the First World War.The tournament that year was limited to clubs from the north with the execption of Pro Vercelli but was not treated as an official trophy or recognized by FIGC as an Italian title.

Controversy hit the Championship in the 1921–22 season which saw the major clubs (including Pro Vercelli, Bologna FC and Juventus FC) in dispute with the FIGC. The teams had asked for a reduction in the number of clubs in the top division in accordance with a plan drawn up by Vittorio Pozzo, the Italian national team coach. Pozzo's plan was dismissed and the CCI (Italian: Confederazione Calcistica Italiana) was founded and organised a 1921-22 CCI league to run concurrently with the 1921-22 season organised by the FIGC.[5] Further scandal followed in the 1926–27 season when title-winners Torino were stripped of their scudetto following an FIGC investigation. A Torino official was found to have bribed opposing defender Luigi Allemandi in Torino's match against Juventus FC on 5 June 1927, and thus the season finished with no declared champions.[