Italy In 1958,
Juventus won its tenth
Serie A title, the first team to reach that mark. The Governing council of the
Italian Football Federation (FIGC) permitted clubs to add one five-pointed golden star to the team's shirt to represent their tenth title, an extension of the convention that the reigning champions are entitled to display the
scudetto on their shirts. The Italian National Olympic Committee,
CONI, has given, since 1933, the honorary , to sporting bodies and personalities for sustained achievement. The star was later formally adopted by the rest of the sporting organizations in the country as a symbol for ten titles, and the ratio of one star for ten titles has become the "most common" arrangement worldwide. Juventus would have won their third star in
2011–12, had it not been implicated in the
2006 Italian football scandal. The
Italian Football Federation had stripped Juventus of their 2004–05 title and did not award it the 2005–06 title. In protest, Juventus wore no stars at all the following,
2012-13, season. Juventus won their 30th title in
2013–14, earning the right to a third star. However, club president
Andrea Agnelli said Juventus would not wear its stars until any other team had secured a second star, "to emphasise the difference". However, for the
2015–16 season, Juventus reintroduced the stars and added the third star to their jersey as well with new kit manufacturers
Adidas. Juventus did not add a silver star to that shirt, despite having won the
Coppa Italia for the tenth time in
2014-15. To this today, wearing a star to signify 10 Serie A titles or Coppa Italia wins remains a custom and is not codified. in 2016.
Juventus FC wear 3 stars above their crest to represent the 30 league championships they have amassed. Also present in the image are the
Scudetto and the
Coccarda, worn by the current holders of the Serie A and Coppa Italia titles respectively.
Scotland In Scotland,
Rangers displayed five stars above the badge on their shirts in 2003 to symbolize their 50 league titles.
Celtic, who also have more than 50 league titles, have one star above their badge to represent their triumph in the 1967 European Cup. Aberdeen displayed two stars to commemorate their 1980s wins in the
European Cup Winners' Cup and
European Super Cup.
Germany Germany has two official star systems operating in parallel. In 2004, the DFL, which governs the
Bundesliga (the top two divisions), introduced
Verdiente Meistervereine (roughly "distinguished champion clubs"). This has a sliding scale of 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars for 3, 5, 10, 20 and 30 titles. It includes only Bundesliga titles, excluding titles from before the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963, and from the
former East German League.
Dynamo Berlin (playing in
the fourth level) unilaterally began wearing three unapproved stars for its East German titles. In November 2005, the
DFB, which governs non-Bundesliga football, allowed former champions playing outside the Bundesliga to display a single star inscribed with the number of titles. In 2007, Dynamo Berlin switched to a single approved star inscribed with the number 10.
Greuther Fürth retains three silver stars on its club badge to celebrate three pre-Bundesliga titles, but the stars are not featured on its shirts.
United States of America Major League Soccer's previously informal system, one star per
MLS Cup title, was standardized in 2006, with the defending champions wearing the
MLS Scudetto, like the
Serie A system, for one season before adding a new star. Starting in 2012, the Scudetto was replaced with a single gold star worn by reigning champions above any other silver championship stars. In 2016, this system changed again in recognition of the
LA Galaxy's fifth championship title: champion clubs during their title defence wore an oversized gold star (featuring the year of the league win) above other smaller stars set in silver; clubs with five championships (presently only the Galaxy) will wear one gold star; and teams with one-to-four MLS Cup wins will wear one silver star for each victory. In 2020 the system was changed again with the defending champion receiving a silver star and wearing a redesigned MLS scudetto on their sleeve for the following season.
Australia In Australia, they also use a system based around different coloured stars for different trophy wins: Australian winners of the
AFC Champions League will wear a gold star inscribed with the number of wins, while
A-League and
W-League victory is recognised with a silver star similarly embossed; reigning league or
FFA Cup champions will also wear a gold competition emblem in the season following the championship.
Marking success of predecessor clubs and leagues Occasionally, stars are added to badges of successor or phoenix clubs for the achievements of defunct predecessors. An example of this is the
Tampa Bay Rowdies. They added a star to represent the
Soccer Bowl, the championship of the
original NASL, won by the
original Tampa Bay Rowdies in
1975. The club has since added a second star, after the new club won the
2012 edition of the resurrected Soccer Bowl in the
new NASL, and kept both stars upon joining the
USL Championship. In the case of the Impact, the new team paid tribute to the former team's first title through the stripes on their badge. As well as predecessor clubs, victories in the national leagues of defunct countries have also been represented by stars.
FC Dynamo Kyiv have two stars, commemorating championships won in the
Soviet and
Ukrainian football league systems. The same is true of
Belgrade clubs
Partizan and
Red Star who have won titles in
Yugoslavia,
Serbia and Montenegro and present-day
Serbia, while
Spartak Moscow's four stars for every five league titles refer to their 22
Soviet Top League and
Russian Football Premier League titles.
Use in language The star has given rise to a byword to winning trophies. Examples of this include when
Fawaz Al-Hasawi, then owner of English side
Nottingham Forest, was quoted as saying "maybe [Nottingham Forest] will have a third star", in reference to Forest's two European Cups; and
France international
Paul Pogba's comments when asked about stars in the days before the
2018 FIFA World Cup Final: "
Croatia do not have stars – they want one. They have done very well and they want the victory, like us. But I do not have a star. It's on the shirt, but I did not win it. We want to go looking for it like all players." ==International==