A club I remember well from the 90s is Parma. They had pretty strong squads with Verón, Cannavaro, Baggio,Buffon,Stanic, etc. My brother used to put Parmalat milk in his breakfast cereal. Lazio also had a pretty strong squad at the turn of the century.
I'm a bit too young to remember the best years of Serie A(1985 to 1995?) since I was only born in 1990 but Milan and Inter certainly look like former shadows of themselves nowadays. Heard Milan are making interesting signings for the upcoming season, however. Not sure if true or not.
So are Juventus unanimously considered to be the most hated club in Italy? Which one comes second? AC Milan? I mean, Berlusconi owning it must have gotten AC Milan some haters, no?
Another thing I find curious in Italy are state owned stadiums, and rival teams sharing stadiums. That would neevr fly here
Parma was owned by Tanzi through Parmalat:
In 1961, Calisto Tanzi, a 22-year-old college dropout, opened a small pasteurisation plant in Parma. Two decades later, the company had grown into a multinational corporation diversifying into milk, dairy, beverage, bakery, and other product lines in the 1980s, becoming listed on the Milan stock exchange in 1990, and expanding further in the 1990s. Parmalat collapsed in 2003 with a 14bn euro ($20bn; £13bn) hole in its accounts in what remains Europe's biggest bankruptcy.[2]
Lazio was owned by Cragnotti, through Cirio.
One of the most high-profile and wealthy business figures in Italy in recent times, Cragnotti is best known for having been President of S.S. Lazio.[1] However, his most influential position was as head of food conglomerate Cirio.[2][3] This company included all Cirio food brands as well as those of the acquired Del Monte Foods International from the late 1990s. In 1992 Cragnotti bought football team S.S. Lazio from previous owner Calleri. In December 1993, the Ontario Securities Commission fined him for insider trading.[citation needed] The Cragnotti family owned 80% of the Cirio group which in turn owned a 51% stake in the Roman club. In 2002,
the Cirio company declared default on its bonds. The default cost about 1.125 million euros to a plethora of small investors, most of them Italian.
Fiorentina was owned by Cecchi Gori .
He owned the football club A.C. Fiorentina from 1993 to 2002, as well as the private television channel La7. On 3 June 2008, he was arrested in Rome for
bankruptcy and on 25 July 2011 again.
Juventus have a huge amount of hatred. Up to the 90s it was mainly football based, since they were owned by the richest family in Italy (the one that owns Fiat) and they were destroying the national market, by buying all the best national players. Other teams were lucky to challenge them 1-2 years if they had 3/4 lucky players (Maradona, Falcao, Riva, Totti/Batistutia, Mancini/Vialli etc.)
However in the 90s things changed. Juventus hired some nasty managers who built a mafia-like network of power. This started being more than just being the "richest and most powerful clubs" (like REal/Bayern/Manu) and the hatred become stronger.
On the other hand Milan didn't do that at all. Berlusconi minded his own business and focused more on Europe (especially in the later years), without causing any problems on a national level.
Stadiums were good until the 80s. We spent a lot of money poorly for the world cup, renovating old stadiums instead of building new ones. Also, since we are geniuses at always making compromises, we the new stadiums that were built (Turin, Bari) were built with a track for athletics, so we could use money from the Olympic committee. However, the stadiums were too big for those kind of events and in minor cities, so they ended up being poorly designed and not able to serve their purposes.
The case of San Siro is long and complicated. But because Inter and Milan have been succesful from the 60s, both teams requried a large stadium and it made sense to share. No other city in Europe has had 2 top teams in Europe since that time.