The five top European leagues – the Premier League ( England ), La Liga ( Spain ), Serie A ( Italy ), the Bundesliga ( Germany ) and Ligue 1 ( France ) – attract most of the world's best players and each of the leagues has a total wage cost in excess of £ 600 million /€ 763 million / US $ 1. 185 billion.

This unusual final table of the Serie A ( with the most successful Italian teams of the time, Juventus and AS Roma, ending up much lower than expected ) has led to many speculations.

Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM due to sponsorship by Telecom Italia, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and has been operating for over eighty years since the 1929-30 season.

The club is the third oldest of its kind in the country and has spent the majority of its history, with the exception of the 2006 – 07 season, in the top flight First Division ( known as Serie A since 1929 ).

Bahia has won the two most important football national league: The Taça Brasil in 1959 and the Brazilian Championship Serie A ( Campeonato Brasileiro ) in 1988.

Vitoria has never been a national champion but was runner up of the Brazilian Serie A in 1993.

After a change of ownership, in 2011 Atalanta has immediately come back to Serie A: it will dispute its 51st season in the major level of Italian football system.

Blissett has worked as a television pundit for Channel 4 and Bravo's coverage of Serie A.

The main local football club was the U. S. Sanremese Calcio 1904 that has played also in Serie B and in Serie C.

Livorno has a football team in Serie B, A. S. Livorno Calcio.

Lothar Matthäus has won more Germany caps than anyone else, 150, and went to nine major international tournaments, captaining the 1990 FIFA World Cup | 1990 World Cup-winning team. His immediate success in Serie A was a precursor to the national team which finally managed to triumph at the 1990 World Cup held in Italy.

Following its return to Serie A in 2004, the club has become one of the most prominent in Italy, also providing four players to the Italian team that won the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Since Serie A coverage has been shown on Five and ESPN however, Atkinson has not been invited as a pundit.

San Marino also has a representative in the Italian system, with San Marino Calcio playing in the third tier of Italian football, Serie C2 / B.

San Marino has a rather successful professional baseball team, T & A San Marino, which play in the top division of Italian professional baseball, the Serie A1.

: Note: While Barcelona has never been relegated to the Serie B, they have not played every season of the Serie A.

With Internazionale he has won 5 Serie A championships, 4 Coppa Italia, 3 Supercoppa Italiana, 1 UEFA Champions League, and 1 FIFA Club World Cup

At Inter, he has won Serie A, the UEFA Champions League and the Coppa Italia twice.

The city has a football team, Pescara Calcio 1936, which in June 2012 was promoted to Serie A. Pescara Calcio, which played 30 tournaments in the cadet championship, has holdings in five Serie A, especially in the 1980s-1990s years.

During Mr. Banojian's tenure, the network was producing more local programming than ever, more local news production, several sporting events were produced by its Spots Division, including, Beisbol exclusive " Serie Del Caribe " edition of the U. S Beisbol " World Series, World Boxing championship events in partnership with Don King and many others.

Under the leadership of coach Osvaldo Bagnoli, in 1982 – 1983 the team secured 4th place in Serie A ( its highest finish at the time ) and even lead the Serie A standings for a few weeks.

A 2 – 1 away loss in the first leg at La Spezia was followed by a 0 – 0 home tie, and Verona were relegated to Serie C1 after 64 years of play in the two highest divisions.

Ferrara's local football team, Società Polisportiva Ars Et Labor 1907 is going to play in Lega Pro Prima Divisione ( former Serie C1 ), which is the third highest football league in Italy.

The Caribbean Series ( Spanish: Serie del Caribe ), also called the Caribbean World Series ( CWS ) is the highest baseball tournament at club level in Latin America.

The local football club is called Udinese Calcio, founded in 1896, and plays in the highest Italian league ( Serie A ).

The highest paid player for the 2010-2011 Serie A season was Zlatan Ibrahimović of A. C. Milan who received a salary of € 25. 9 million after income taxation and which also includes the incomes of Ibrahimović's bonuses and endorsements.

In 2004 – 05 in English football, the Football League Championship announced a total attendance ( including postseason ) of 9. 8 million, which it said was the fourth highest total attendance for a European football division, behind the FA Premier League ( 12. 88m ), Spain's Primera división ( 11. 57m ) and Germany's Bundesliga ( 10. 92m ), but beating Italy's Serie A ( 9. 77m ) and France's Ligue 1 ( 8. 17m ).

His time at Barcelona was short lived however ; moving back to Serie A football with Milan the following season, in a deal which made him one of the highest paid footballers in the world and cost the Italian club a confirmed € 24 million.

Costinha would be released by the Colchoneros in August 2007, joining Serie A outfit Atalanta BC, where he would appear very rarely throughout his spell ( only one match, in his first season ) due to serious injuries and, later, technical choices from his club, who considered the player unfit to play competitively, despite him having the highest salary in the first team (€ 700, 000 per year, in a contract due to expire in June 2010 ).

** Serie C1, the third highest football league in Italy until 2008

Ambato plays host to two teams professional teams, playing in Ecuador's highest leagues: Macará and Técnico plays in Serie B.

He is also the highest goalscorer in Serie A history, with 274 goals, 49 ahead of anyone else.

Serie C2, the fourth highest professional league in the Italian system, was also renamed in 2008 and is now called Lega Pro Seconda Divisione.

Before the 1978 – 79 season there were only three professional football leagues in Italy, the third being Serie C. In 1978, it was decided to split Serie C into Serie C1 ( the third highest league ) and Serie C2.

His goal total was the highest since Gunnar Nordahl had scored 34 in the 1950 / 51 season, and no player since has scored as many goals in a Serie A season.

His highest scoring league seasons so far have seen him score 11 goals in the 2004 – 05 Serie A, and 17 2006 – 07 English Premier League.

He is the joint-third highest scorer in Italian Serie A history ( along with Giuseppe Meazza ) with 216 goals.

He is currently the seventh highest goalscorer of all-time in Italy's Serie A with 190 goals.

The following year the team won promotion to the Serie A then the highest division in Italy.

The football team plays in the Ecuadorian Serie A, the highest level of professional football in the country.

In the 1990s, Palermo played between Serie B and Serie C1 with a few highs, such as its 1995 – 1996 Serie B and Coppa Italia campaign, the latter ending in the quarter-finals, and a number of lows such as the 1998 relegation to Serie C2 after defeat in the play-offs to Battipagliese, later revoked by the federation to fill a vacant league slot.

Despite the heavy competition with the best midfielders in that time such as Zinedine Zidane, Costa was named the best number 10 player in the Serie A a few times.

Cafu was accused along with several other Serie A players, including Roma team-mate Fábio Júnior and Gustavo Bartelt, countryman and later Milan team-mate Dida, for using forged passport in their attempt to dodge regulations regarding the number of non-European players allowed on Italian club rosters.

After scoring a goal in Juventus ' final match of the 2006 – 07 Serie B season against Spezia, Trezeguet made a gesture toward the club president, making a number 15 with his fingers – the number of goals he scored throughout the Serie B season – which was followed by a hand gesture which, in Italian, means " I'm out of here.

* Ottavio Bianchi, a former coach for a number of Serie A teams

" On 18 September 2004, U. S. Lecce, an Italian team currently playing in Serie A, retired the number 12 to the fans, which was handed to them by the former captain Cristian Ledesma.

Founded in 1911, the club holds the record for total number of seasons ( 53 ) and consecutive seasons ( 18, from 1947 – 48 to 1964 – 65 ) in Serie B, which they have won three times.

With the prospect of European football approaching, the management proceeded to strengthen the squad, most notably signing a number of young players from big Serie A clubs such as Rincón of Internazionale, Ignazio Abate and Lino Marzoratti of Milan and Sebastian Giovinco, Claudio Marchisio and Rej Volpato of Juventus on loan or co-ownership deals.

The number of clubs belonging to the Prima Divisione continued to increase every year, until FIGC decided to rename it as " Serie C " ( at the beginning of the 1935-36 season ) and then a big reduction in 1948 that created a sole national division in 1952-53.

Upon its inception in 1978 – 79, Serie C2 consisted of four divisions, however, that number was reduced to three from the start of the 1991 – 92 season.

When in 1948 the three leagues running Division 3 ( Italian Serie C ) had to be reorganized due to an ever growing number of regional teams joining, FIGC decided not to relegate the exceeding teams to regional championships.

In the following years, despite a number of noted head coaches such as Edmondo Fabbri, Cesare Maldini and Renzo Ulivieri, Ternana did not manage to return in the top flight, and instead were relegated to Serie C in 1980, despite a prestigious run in the Coppa Italia 1979-80, where Ternana reached the semi-finals, being then eliminated 3 – 1 on aggregate by AS Roma.

Due to Serie A rules which impose a cap on the number of non-EU players clubs can sign from abroad, Júlio César was initially registered to Chievo.

On November 2010 the club was acquired by a consortium of Rome-based enterpreneurs ( including popular actor Luca Zingaretti ) for a sum of € 400, 000 ; the new owners immediately made a number of changes, appointing former Cagliari player Maurizio Coppola as head coach and former Serie A star Abel Balbo as assistant coach and technical area coordinator.

He moved to Europe in 1989, playing with Benfica and then AS Roma, staying there until 2003 and playing over 400 Serie A matches with the club, which retired his shirt number, 6.

He played 49 Serie A matches and scored 12 goals in 2 seasons, but at the start of 2009 – 10 season, he became surplus of the team, and not offered a shirt number.

Camoranesi contributed to a number of notable goals when Juventus played in Serie B after the relegation.

The newly merged team started in Serie A winning promotion with a record number of points ( 111 ) and 19 straight wins.