The Rise and Fall of Parma

Football in Parma is a story of a club propelled from decades of lower league football to a few short years of top-flight status and multiple European trophies - before financial ruin left them trying to sell those very same trophies to stay in business. 

Correlations between financial crises and Italian clubs have always been present with one of the more stark cases being the incredible rise and then sharp fall of Parma. Possibly one of the most extreme rises and falls, the nineties brought previously unseen glories to the northern-based city before quickly vanishing back to levels more typical.

In their club history that stretches back for over a century, much of that time had been spent in the lower leagues of Italian football. However, in the space of four years, they went from being an unremarkable lower-league side to a continental force.

A founding member of both Serie B (in 1929) and Serie C (in 1935), Parma spent years changing through these two divisions, early connoisseurs of the ‘yo-yo’ team tag perhaps, before relegation in 1966 saw them drop to Serie D.