Early years The team was founded in 1929 by a small number of football fans from
Chievo, a Verona . Initially, the club was not officially affiliated to the
Italian Football Federation (FIGC), but nonetheless played several amateur tournaments and friendly matches under the denomination
Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro Chievo, a title imposed by the
fascist regime. The club's formal debut in an official league was on 8 November 1931. The team colours at the time were blue and white. Chievo disbanded in 1936, however, due to economic woes but returned to play in 1948 after World War II, being registered in the regional league of (Second Division). In 1957, the team moved to the field "Carlantonio Bottagisio", where they played until 1986. In 1959, after the restructuring of the football leagues, Chievo was admitted to play the
Seconda Categoria (Second Category), a regional league placed next-to-
last in the Italian football pyramid. That year, Chievo changed its name to
Cardi Chievo after a new sponsor and was quickly promoted to the
Prima Categoria, from which it experienced its first-ever relegation in 1962.
Series of promotions In 1964, Luigi Campedelli, a businessman and owner of the Paluani company, was named the new Chievo chairman. Under Campedelli's presidency, Chievo climbed through the Italian football pyramid, reaching the
Serie D after the 1974–75 season. Under the name
Paluani Chievo the team was promoted to
Serie C2 in 1986. Due to promotion, Chievo was forced to move to the
Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi, the main venue in Verona; another promotion to Serie C1 followed in 1989. In 1990, the team changed its name to its current one,
A.C. ChievoVerona. In 1992, President Luigi Campedelli, who had returned at the helm of the club two years before, died of a heart attack, and his son
Luca Campedelli, aged just 23, became the new and youngest chairman of an Italian professional football club. Campedelli promoted
Giovanni Sartori to director of football and named
Alberto Malesani as the new head coach. Under Malesani, the team astonishingly won the Serie C1 and was promoted to
Serie B, where city rival
Hellas Verona was playing at the time. In 1997, after Malesani signed for
Fiorentina,
Silvio Baldini was appointed the new head coach. The following season, with
Domenico Caso as the coach, saw the first dismissal of a coach during the presidency of Luca Campedelli, with Caso being fired and replaced with
Lorenzo Balestro. It was during these years that the nickname
"mussi volanti" ("flying donkeys") was born. It originated from supporters of their crosstown rivals
Hellas, who would mock long-suffering Chievo supporters that Chievo will only be promoted if "donkeys could fly" (the equivalent of the English language
falsism "if pigs could fly," denoting an impossible dream). In
2000–01,
Luigi Delneri was signed as coach and led Chievo, by virtue of its third-place finish in Serie B, to promotion to
Serie A, the first time in team history that it had reached the top tier of Italian football.
Mussi Volanti (2001–2007) In
2001–02, Chievo's Serie A debut season, the team was most critics' choice for an instant return to Serie B. However, they became the surprise team in the league, often playing spectacular and entertaining football and even leading the league for six consecutive weeks. The club finally ended the season with a highly respectable fifth-place finish, qualifying the team to play in the
UEFA Cup. Chievo's impressive performance inspired a 2002 book about soccer economics titled "Fenomeno Chievo. Economia, costume, società" by Marco Vitale. In
2002–03, Chievo debuted at the European level but were eliminated in the first round by
Red Star Belgrade. The team finished the Serie A season in seventh place, again proving itself one of the better Serie A teams. The
2003–04 season, the last with Delneri at the helm, saw Chievo finish ninth. The
2004–05 season is remembered as one of the toughest ever in Chievo's history.
Mario Beretta, a Serie A novice from
Ternana, was named coach, but after a strong start that brought Chievo to third behind
Juventus and
Milan, the team slowly lost position in the league table. With three matches remaining in the season, Chievo was third-from-last, a position which would see it relegated to Serie B. As a last resort, Beretta was fired, and
Maurizio D'Angelo, a former Chievo player, was appointed temporarily to replace him as coach. Morale improved, and two wins and a draw from the final three matches proved enough to keep Chievo in Serie A. In
2005–06,
Giuseppe Pillon of
Treviso FBC was appointed as new coach. The team experienced a return to the successful Delneri era, both in style of play and results, which resulted in Chievo ending the season in seventh and gaining a berth in the UEFA Cup. However, because of the
football scandal involving several top-class teams, all of which finished higher than Chievo in the 2005–06 season, the Flying Donkeys were awarded a place in the next
Champions League preliminary phase. played for Chievo between 2003 and 2006 On 14 July 2006, the verdict in the scandal was made public. Juventus, Milan and Fiorentina, who had all initially qualified for the
2006–07 Champions League, and
Lazio, who had initially qualified for the
2006–07 UEFA Cup, were all banned from
UEFA competition for the 2006–07 season. However, Milan were allowed to enter the Champions League after their appeal to the FIGC. Chievo took up a place in the third qualifying stage of the competition along with Milan and faced Bulgarian side
Levski Sofia. Chievo lost the first leg 2–0 in
Sofia and managed a 2–2 home draw on the second leg and were eliminated by a 4–2 aggregate score, with Levski advancing to the Champions League group stage. As a Champions League third round qualifying loser, Chievo was given a place in the UEFA Cup final qualifying round. On 25 August 2006, they were drawn to face Portuguese side
Braga. The first leg, played on 14 September in
Braga, ended in a 2–0 win for the Portuguese. The return match, played on 28 September in Verona, although won by Chievo 2–1, resulted in a 3–2 aggregate loss and the club's elimination from the competition. On 16 October 2006, following a 1–0 defeat against
Torino, head coach Giuseppe Pillon was fired and replaced by Luigi Delneri, one of the original symbols of the
miracle Chievo, who had led the club to the Serie A in 2002. On 27 May 2007, the last match day of the 2006–07 Serie A season, Chievo was one of five teams in danger of falling into the last undecided relegation spot. Needing only a draw against
Catania, a direct competitor in the relegation battle, Chievo lost 2–0 playing on a neutral field in
Bologna. Wins by
Parma,
Siena and
Reggina condemned Chievo to Serie B for the 2007–08 season after six seasons in the topflight.
A year with the Cadetti (2007–08) Chievo bounced back quickly from the disappointment of their relegation on the last matchday of 2006–07, searching for an immediate promotion return to the topflight. After the expected departure of several top-quality players, including
Franco Semioli,
Salvatore Lanna,
Matteo Brighi,
Paolo Sammarco and
Erjon Bogdani, the manager Delneri also parted ways with the club.
Giuseppe Iachini replaced him and the captain,
Lorenzo D'Anna, gave way to
Sergio Pellissier at the end of the transfer window. A new squad was constructed, most notably including the arrivals of midfielders
Maurizio Ciaramitaro and
Simone Bentivoglio, defender
César and forward
Antimo Iunco. This new incarnation of the
gialloblu were crowned winter champions (along with Bologna), en route to a 41st matchday promotion after a 1–1 draw at
Grosseto left them four points clear of third-place
Lecce with one match remaining. In addition to winning promotion, they were conferred with the Ali della Vittoria trophy on the final matchday of the season, their first league title of any kind in 14 years.
Return in Serie A (2008–2019) In their first season return to the topflight, Chievo immediately struggled in the league, resulting in the dismissal of Iachini in November and his replacement with former Parma boss
Domenico Di Carlo. After Di Carlo's appointment, Chievo managed a remarkable resurgence that led the
gialloblu out of the relegation zone after having collected just nine points from their first 17 matches. Highlight matches included a 3–0 defeat of Lazio (who then won the
2008–09 Coppa Italia title) at the
Stadio Olimpico, and a thrilling 3–3 draw away to Juventus in which captain and longtime Chievo striker Sergio Pellissier scored a late equalizer to complete his first career hat-trick. A series of hard-fought draws against top clubs
Roma,
Internazionale and
Genoa in the final stretch of the season solidified
Ceo's position outside the drop zone and Serie A status was finally confirmed on matchday 37 with a home draw against Bologna. An essentially unchanged line-up earned safety the following season with four matchdays to spare.
Lorenzo D'Anna remained as coach of the club for the
2018–19 season after replacing
Rolando Maran during the 2017–18 season. On 13 September, Chievo were deducted 3 points after being found guilty of false accounting on exchanging players with
Cesena. President Luca Campedelli was banned for three months as a result of the scheme. Chievo were officially relegated on 14 April 2019 after a 3–1 home loss to
Napoli.
Serie B years and league exclusion (2019–2021) In July 2021, Chievo was expelled from Serie B for the
2021–22 season for being unable to prove its financial viability due to outstanding tax payments. The club argued that there was an agreement in place during the COVID-19 pandemic that allowed them to spread the payments out over a longer period. However, after three unsuccessful appeals, the decision to bar Chievo Verona from registering to Serie B was upheld, with
Cosenza taking their place in Serie B.
Clivense and Serie D restart (2021–current) Over the next months following the club's exclusion, former captain
Sergio Pellissier led the search for a new ownership group to allow a
phoenix club to compete in Serie D under the Chievo name. However, on 21 August, Pellissier announced in an Instagram post that no owners were found in time for the Serie D registration deadline. The original Chievo club has in the meantime appealed to the
Council of State against its exclusion and is currently registered in no division, albeit still with the right to apply for a spot in an amateur league of
Veneto in the following weeks. Campedelli eventually opted to keep the club alive as a youth team for the 2021–22 season, while Pellissier decided instead to found a new club himself, which was admitted to
Terza Categoria at the very bottom of the
Italian football league system; the club, originally named FC Chievo 2021, was then renamed to
FC Clivense following a legal warning from AC ChievoVerona. On 10 May 2024, Sergio Pellissier and the owners of Clivense, by then in the
Serie D league, successfully acquired the logo and naming rights of the original ChievoVerona club in an auction. Later on 29 May, Clivense formally changed its denomination to AC ChievoVerona, thus becoming the legal heir to the original club, albeit maintaining white and blue as its colours. == Identity ==