ACF Fiorentina - last updated on 24 April 2008
(Courtesy of Johnny Beaufays)
Club name: Associazione Calcio Firenze
SpA
Foundation: August 26th 1926
City: Firenze
Colours: Purple and white
Website: www.acffiorentina.it
Honours:
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup - 1 (1960-61)
Serie A - 2 (1955-56, 1968-69)
Coppa Italia - 6 (1939-40, 1960-61, 1965-66, 1974-75, 1995-96, 2000-01)
Supercoppa Italiana - 1 (1996)
Mitropa Cup - 1 (1966)
Anglo-Italian Cup - 1 (1974-75)
Memorial Pier Cesar Baretti - 1 (1989)
A bit of history:
ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as simply Fiorentina, is an Italian professional football club from Florence, Tuscany. Founded by a merger in 1926, Fiorentina have participated at the top-tier of Italian football for the majority of their existence, only four clubs have played in more Serie A seasons. After climbing back up the Italian football system in the early 2000s, Fiorentina are competing in Serie A for 2007-08.
Fiorentina have won Serie A twice, first in 1955-56 then again in 1968-69, as well as winning six Coppa Italia trophies. On the European stage Fiorentina have won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1960-61, they finished runners-up in the UEFA Cup 1989-90 and they also came close to winning the biggest European prize, finishing as runners-up in the European Cup during 1956-57.
Since 1931 the club have played at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which currently has a capacity of 47,282. The stadium has used several names over the years and has undergone several renovations. Fiorentina are known widely by the nickname Viola, a reference to their distinctive purple colours.
The official emblem of the city of Florence, a red and white fleur-de-lis, has played a pivitol role in the all round symbolism of the club.
Over the course of the club's history they have had several badge changes, all of which incorporated Florence's fleur-de-lis in some way. The first one was nothing more than the city's coat of arms, that is a white shield with the red fleur-de-lis inside. It was soon changed with a very stylized fleur-de-lis, always red, sometimes even without a white field. The most common symbol, adopted for about twenty years, had been a white lozenge with the flower inside: only during the season they were italian champions the lozenge disappeared and the flower was overlapped to the scudetto.
A particularly noted logo, was one which was half made up of the city of Florence's emblem and half made up of an "F" standing for Fiorentina. When introduced by the new owner Flavio Pontello, people disliked it believing it was an advertising commercial decision and, most of all, the symble called more to an alabard rather than a fleur-de-lis.
Today's logo is a gold bordered lozenge with a purple background, in the bottom half there is the letters "AC" in white and under it "F" in red, standing for the club's name. In the upper half, there is another gold bordered lozenge inside it, this time with a white background and the red fleur-de-lis of Florence. This had been in use from 1992 to 2002, but after the financial crysis of the old society the new one couldn't use the same logo: Florence's comune, then, granted them freely the stylized coat of arms of the city used in other documents. Diego Della Valle acquired the logo the next year in a judicial auction for the striking amount of 2.5 millions of €, becoming the logotype the most expensive among italian football ones.
Club crests: (roll on the crest to get more informations)
ACF Fiorentina
