1908 Italian Football Championship

Campionato Italiano di Prima Categoria

Season	1908
Champions	Pro Vercelli 1st title
← 1907 1909 →

The 1908 Italian Football Championship season was won by Pro Vercelli.

In this season, two championships of Prima Categoria were played:

1. Italian Championship, the main tournament where only Italian players were allowed to play; the winners would be proclaimed Campioni d'Italia (Italian Champions)
2. Federal Championship, a secondary tournament where foreign players (if they lived in Italy) were also allowed to play; the winners would be proclaimed Campioni Federali (Federal Champions)

The winner of Italian Championship was Pro Vercelli. They won as prize Coppa Buni.

The winner of Federal Championship was Juventus. They won as prize Coppa Spensley.

However, only Pro Vercelli's title is officially recognized by the Italian Football Federation, while the Federal Championship won by Juventus was later forgotten by FIGC, due to the boycott made by the "spurious international teams" (the clubs composed mostly of foreign players).

Italian Championship

Qualifications

Piedmont

Played on March 1 and 8

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Pro Vercelli	3-1	Juventus	1-1	2-0

Liguria

Andrea Doria was the only registered team.

Lombardy

U.S. Milanese was the only registered team.

Final round

Final classification

Pos	Team	Pld	Won	Drw	Lst	Pts	GF	GA	GD	Notes
1	Pro Vercelli	4	2	2	0	6	4	2	+2	Champions
2	US Milanese	4	2	1	1	5	7	3	+4
3	Andrea Doria	4	0	1	3	1	4	10	-6

Results

Team 1	Score	Team 2
US Milanese	5-1	Andrea Doria
Pro Vercelli	0-0	US Milanese
Andrea Doria	1-2	Pro Vercelli
Pro Vercelli	1-1	Andrea Doria
US Milanese	0-1	Pro Vercelli
Andrea Doria	1-2	US Milanese

Federal Championship

Genoa and Torino didn't enter in the competition. Milan withdrew from the tournament on January 1, 1908, in order to protest against FIF.

Final

Played on January 19 and February 23

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Andrea Doria	1-3	Juventus	0-3	1-0

Classification

Pos	Team	Pld	Won	Drw	Lst	Pts	GF	GA	GD	Notes
1	Juventus	2	1	0	1	2	3	1	+2	Champions After playoff.
2	Andrea Doria	2	1	0	1	2	1	3	-2	Second place After playoff.
N/A	Milan	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	Withdrew.

Playoff (Turin, March 16)

Team 1	Score	Team 2
Juventus	2-2	Andrea Doria

Cancelled and repeated for a mistake made by the referee during the match

Playoff (Torino, May 10)

Team 1	Score	Team 2
Juventus	5-1	Andrea Doria

• Juventus Federal Champions

Juventus didn't receive Coppa Spensley as prize because Milan, the club who won the Cup in 1906 and 1907, refused to give the Cup to Juventus and gave it to Spensley and Genoa in order to protest against FIF. In the Federal Assembly of 1908 FIF decided to assign permanently Spensley Cup to Milan.

References and sources

• Almanacco Illustrato del Calcio - La Storia 1898-2004, Panini Edizioni, Modena, September 2005
• Carlo Chiesa, La grande storia del calcio italiano, 2nd episode: Juve, scippati due titoli! Inter, l'atroce beffa (1908-1910, pp. 17–32, Guerin Sportivo #5 (May 2012).
• Online digitalized Archive of newspaper La Stampa of Turin.