Hellas Verona Football Club, is a professional Italian FC based in Verona, Veneto. Currently competing in Serie A, the club achieved its greatest success by winning the Serie A Championship in the 1984–85 season.
Established in 1903 by a group of high school students at the suggestion of a classics professor, the club adopted the name “Hellas,” the Greek word for Greece. Initially, football enthusiasm in Verona was limited, but when two city teams staged a match in the Roman amphitheatre in 1906, public interest and media coverage began to grow.
In its formative years, Hellas competed against local rivals, including Bentegodi, vying for supremacy in the city. By the 1907–08 season, the club was facing regional opponents, sparking a long-standing rivalry with Vicenza that persists today. During the period from 1898 to 1926, when Italian football was organized into regional leagues, Hellas was a founding member and consistently performed well. In 1911, the city supported the club’s acquisition of a proper stadium, allowing them to participate in their first regional tournament, which served as a qualifier for the national championship.
Following World War I, the team merged with rival Verona in 1919, adopting the name Hellas Verona. From 1926 to 1929, the top teams from regional leagues were integrated into the elite “Campionato Nazionale,” and Hellas Verona joined this prestigious competition but struggled to maintain competitiveness.
The modern Serie A structure emerged in 1929 when the Campionato Nazionale transitioned into a professional league. Hellas merged with local rivals Bentegodi and Scaligera to form AC Verona, aiming to establish a top-tier contender. They debuted in Serie B in 1929. After nearly three decades, they achieved promotion to Serie A for one season in 1957–58. In 1959, the club merged with another city rival called Hellas and, in homage to its origins, reverted to the name Hellas Verona AC.
Website : Hellas Verona Football Club
