1908 Italian Football Championship

In this season were played two championships of Prima Categoria:

1. the federal championship, won by Juventus (later not recognized by FIGC)
2. the Italian championship, won by Pro Vercelli (the only title recognized as "scudetto")

The reasons of this "schism" were the fact the FIF (later FIGC, the Italian Football Association) wanted to exclude foreign players from Italian championship. So FIF decided to organize two championships: Campionato Federale (where also foreign players were admitted) and Campionato Italiano (where only Italian players were admitted). The winner of the Federal Championship would have won the Coppa Spensley (Spensley Cup) and the winner of the Italian Championship would have won the Coppa Buni. Milan, Genoa and Torino withdrew from Italian and Federal Championship in order to protest against the autarchical policy of FIF.

The winner of the Federal Championship was Juventus.

The winner of the Italian championship of Prima Categoria was S.G. Pro Vercelli.

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.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
A. 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	A. 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	A. 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. The federal title won by Juventus isn't currently recognized by FIGC as "scudetto".

Italian Championship

Qualifications

Piedmont

Played on March 1 and 8

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Pro Vercelli 25px	3-1	25px 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	U.S. 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
U.S. Milanese 25px	5-1	25px Andrea Doria
Pro Vercelli 25px	0-0	25px U.S. Milanese
Andrea Doria 25px	1-2	25px Pro Vercelli
Pro Vercelli 25px	1-1	25px Andrea Doria
U.S. Milanese 25px	0-1	25px Pro Vercelli
Andrea Doria 25px	1-2	25px U.S. Milanese

Champion

Italian Football Championship 1908 Winners
S.G. Pro Vercelli 1st Title

Pro Vercelli

• Italy Giovanni Innocenti
• Italy Salvaneschi
• Italy Celoria
• Italy Guido Ara
• Italy Giuseppe Milano I
• Italy Pietro Leone
• Italy Romussi
• Italy Marcello Bertinetti
• Italy Vincenzo Fresia
• Italy Annibale Visconti
• Italy Carlo Rampini I

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.