Association football Current Italian football laws allow clubs to move only between bordering cities, although there have been some exceptions. Some examples include: •
F.C. Südtirol was founded in
Brixen as Sport Verein Milland in 1974. In 1995, after unsuccessfully trying to buy
A.C. Bolzano of
Bolzano (a club in financial difficulties that filed for bankruptcy shortly after and was refounded as
F.C. Bolzano 1996), new owners bought Milland and renamed it Football Club Südtirol-Alto Adige, changing their colors from yellow and black to red and white (the colours of both
South Tyrol and Bolzano). The club quickly won promotions, reaching
Serie D in 1997 and staying at that level until 2000. After briefly moving from Brixen to
Tramin an der Weinstraße in the second half of the
1999-2000 Serie D season, due to problems with the Brixen stadium management, the club won promotion to the professional
Serie C2 at the end of that campaign. Due to the fact that the only stadium in South Tyrol suitable to host professional matches being
Stadio Druso in Bolzano, the club moved there to play their home matches and dropped the Italian part in their name, shortening and "Germanizing" it to
Fussball Club Südtirol. The team ownership immediately also tried to move the registered office of the club to the
South Tyrol capital, but this was contrasted by the
Italian Football Federation until 2011 (causing the club to continuously move from Brixen to Bolzano and vice versa also during the same season; the games in Brixen were played without any supporters in the stands because of the unsuitability of its facility). The club reached the third level of the Italian professional football at the end of the 2010 season and it was promoted in
Serie B for the first time in 2022. •
U.C. AlbinoLeffe was founded in 1998 after the merger of Albinese Calcio of
Albino and Società Calcio Leffe of
Leffe, two clubs hailing from two small towns closed to each other in the
Val Seriana, in the
province of Bergamo; at the time of the merger, both sides were playing in
Serie C2. AlbinoLeffe took home in Stadio Carlo Martinelli of Leffe. The newborn team immediately won promotion to
Serie C1, and, at the end of the 2002–03 season, also reached
Serie B for the first time. This forced the
light-blues to move to the
Stadio Atleti Azzurri d'Italia of
Bergamo to play their home matches, because the stadium of Leffe was too small to host Serie B games (the youth teams kept on using the Stadio Martinelli, though). AlbinoLeffe spent 9 consecutive years in the second division and during this period it moved its legal headquarters to Bergamo without much fuss and also built a training center in
Zanica, a town south of Bergamo and several kilometers away from the Val Seriana, while still nominally representing Albino and Leffe. The club exploited the Bergamo stadium until 2019, when it was pushed out by
Atalanta B.C., the main team in Bergamo, that in the meantime had bought the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d'Italia and started to rebuild it. This forced the Val Seriana club to move again to another sports facility, the
Stadio Città di Gorgonzola in
Gorgonzola, in the
province of Milan, while they were building a stadium owned by them inside their training centre: the new stadium, named AlbinoLeffe Stadium, opened in 2021. • In 2003, after
Cosenza Calcio 1914 was not admitted to Serie B, a new ownership bought the sports rights from then-
Serie D club
Castrovillari to let a
Cosenza franchise to play football in the upcoming season. The new club, however, proved to be short-lived, as it declared bankruptcy in 2007, but was promptly replaced by
Fortitudo Cosenza, born as a move of neighbouring Serie D club
Rende Calcio. •
F.C. Neapolis was born as a move of Sangiuseppese, a club hailing from the neighbouring city of
San Giuseppe Vesuviano, to
Naples. The club, in search for a fanbase and constantly overshadowed by
S.S.C. Napoli's presence, moved (or attempted to move) to several towns and cities in the
Gulf area, first to
Mugnano di Napoli, and later to
Frattamaggiore and
Torre del Greco, before coming back to Mugnano di Napoli, often slightly modifying their denomination consequently, adding a reference to a previous local team or the name of the town they were playing in. The wandering club finally disbanded in 2015. • In 1994, one year after the cancellation of
Calcio Catania,
Atletico Leonzio's chairman Franco Proto moved his club to
Catania, renaming it
Atletico Catania. The club was actually founded in
Mascalucia in 1970 as Sporting Club Mascalucia and later moved to
Catania as Atletico Catania before moving again to
Lentini, effectively meaning that the transfer to Catania was a "moving back". Atletico Catania went on to play up to the third level, in
Serie C1, losing promotion to
Serie B on play-offs twice before being cancelled in 2001 because of financial difficulties also related to Calcio Catania's return into professional football and the consequent drop in attendance. The club was immediately refounded by a group of fans and has remained in the amateur levels since, while many clubs tried to continue the football tradition of Lentini, the most recent one being
Sicula Leonzio (born by moving there Real Belpassese of
Belpasso), that reached
Serie C in 2017, but was disbanded at the end of the
2019–20 season. •
A.C.D. Città di Vittoria, born in 2007 as merger of Serie D's Comiso with minor league club Junior Vittoria (possibly a trick to allow the club to legally move from
Comiso to
Vittoria). •
A.S.D. Pol. Libertas Acate of
Serie D are a club officially settled in
Acate, which however actually plays their home matches in
Modica and are recognized by both fans and the regional press as Modica's club, being frequently referred to as Libertas Acate-Modica. In fact, after a takeover bid in 2006 the club left Acate to play their home matches in Modica despite the fact they were not eligible to change the "legal" home city. •
S.S. Racing Club Roma, playing in
Rome, was founded in 2013 as
A.S.D. Lupa Castelli Romani in the town of
Frascati. Lupa Castelli Romani was founded in summer 2013 after
A.S.D. Real T.B.M. Zagarolo transferred the seat and its sports title of
Eccellenza from
Zagarolo to
Frascati (meanwhile, Lupa Frascasti moved out of Frascati to Rome and changed its name to Lupa Roma, see below). After gaining promotion to
Lega Pro in 2015, Lupa Castelli Romani was forced to play its home games in
Rieti and also tried to make the move permanent, by taking the place of local
Serie D team
F.C. Rieti unsuccessfully, even changing its colors from red and yellow to claret and sky blue, the colors of F.C. Rieti. After only one season, the club was relegated to
Serie D and was bought by Antonio Penzone, the owner of Racing Club Ardea, a team based in
Ardea playing in
Eccellenza at the time. The new owner renamed the club Racing Club Roma and moved it to the Italian capital city, while retiring the first team of Racing Club Ardea, but not its youth system. The club immediately benefited from a repechage in
Lega Pro, but was again relegated after a single season, ending at the bottom of its group. In 2017, Penzone bought
Fondi Calcio, renaming it
Racing Club Fondi, while retiring Racing Club Roma. After a single year, Penzone sold the rights to take part to Serie D to
F.C. Aprilia (that was consequently renamed Aprila Racing Club) and concentrated only to the youth teams of Racing Club Ardea. •
Lupa Frascati was founded in 1974 after the merger of Associazione Sportiva Frascati of
Frascati and OMI Roma of
Rome, taking the place of OMI in
Serie D, while playing in Frascati, effectively meaning that the first team of the
Roman club was moving to the town of Frascati. The new club gained promotion in
Serie C2 at the end of 1977–78 season. In 1980 the club was relegated back in Serie D and sold its sports rights to another club based in the city of Rome, Romulea, while it restarted from the amateur levels as SIRS Frascati. After several name and property changes, it took back the Lupa Frascati moniker in 2006. In the season 2013–14 the club moved to the Axa district of Rome changing its name to
A.S.D. Lupa Roma, and playing the home matches in nearby Stadio Pietro Desideri of
Fiumicino At the end of 2019 season, the club disbanded all its teams. •
A.S.D. Maccarese Calcio was relocated and renamed as
A.S.D. Trastevere Calcio in 2013. • In 2014
A.S.D. Trastevere Calcio were promoted through relocation again, which saw the relocation of
A.P.D. Ciampino from
Ciampino to
Trastevere, as well as the renaming of the first, founded in 2013 Trastevere as
A.S.D. Guardia di Finanza Calcio, a namesake of
Guardia di Finanza. That club became
A.S. Grifone Gialloverde in 2016.
Ciampino also headquartered another team,
Pol. Città di Ciampino. •
Guidonia Montecelio 1937 FC, based in
Guidonia Montecelio, was founded in the town of
Monterosi in 1968 as S.S. Monterosi. In 2021, Monterosi reached a professional championship for the first time and changed their denomination to Monterosi Tuscia F.C.. Due to the fact that their home stadium, Stadio Marcello Martoni in Monterosi, was not suitable to host professional matches, the club opted to move to
Viterbo's
Stadio Enrico Rocchi, but, after only one season,
US Viterbese 1908, the main team in Viterbo and also tenant of the stadium, decided to evict them. In the meanwhile, the club tried to renovate Monterosi's stadium, but bureaucratic problems prevented them to do so, so they moved first to
Stadio Ettore Mannucci in
Pontedera (about 300 km away from Monterosi) and later to
Stadio Gaetano Bonolis in
Teramo (some 200 km from their hometown). Finally, in 2023, Monterosi Tuscia decided to severe all the ties with their town of origin and moved their headquarters to the city of
Guidonia Montecelio and to the local Stadio Comunale, changing their denomination to the current one accordingly.
Basketball • Before the 2010–11 season,
Triboldi were legally domiciled in
Soresina, but played their home games in nearby
Cremona, a community in
the same Province. The club has now changed its domicile to Cremona. •
Nuova Sebastiani Basket moved from
Rieti, a city in the
Lazio region near Rome, to the southern city of
Naples effective with the 2009–10 season. == Ireland ==