Though their first ever match was against the Italian battleship Regina Margherita, the game ended in a 1–1 draw and the Catania line-up that day consisted of Vassallo, Gismondo, Bianchi, Messina, Slaiter, Caccamo, Stellario, Binning, Cocuzza, Ventimiglia and Pappalardo.

As they gained promotion, the team entered the Second Division, but the fascist reform of Italian football dictated the disbandment of Catanese and the establishment of Società Sportiva Catania on 27 June 1929.

The club's name was briefly changed to Associazione Calcio Fascista Catania during the 1942–43 season in Serie C, which ended prematurely due to World War II.

The late 1950s–1960s are considered the golden years for the Catanian club, as they managed to achieve a promotion to Serie A on two occasions during this time.

Under the management of Carmelo Di Bella, who had played for the club in the late 1930s, Catania gained promotion from Serie B in the 1959–60 season.

Catania had lost their final game 4–2 to Brescia and needed Parma to get a good result against Triestina for the Sicilian club to secure promotion.

Many of the club's most notable stars played around this time, such as midfielders Alvaro Biagini and the Brazilian Chinesinho, along with wingers Carlo Facchin and Giancarlo Danova in the side.

After a court session, magistrates declared the FIGC's decision as invalid, thus forcing it to include Catania back into the footballing fold for the year.

The club claimed that Siena fielded an ineligible player in a 1–1 tie, a result which saw Catania relegated, whereas the two extra points from a victory would have kept them safe.

In August, the FIGC decided to let Catania, along with Genoa and Salernitana, stay in Serie B; the newly reborn Fiorentina was also added for the 2003–04 season.

During the start of that season, Antonino Pulvirenti, chairman of the flight company Windjet and owner of Sicilian Serie C1 team Acireale, bought the club.

It happened during the Sicilian derby with Palermo, where policeman Filippo Raciti was killed during football-related violence caused by Catania ultras outside the Stadio Angelo Massimino.

[12] The following season, with manager Pasquale Marino leaving for Udinese and Silvio Baldini taking charge of the team, proved to be much harder.

Despite this, Zenga managed to lead the rossazzurri off the relegation zone in a heated final week game, a 1–1 home tie to Roma, with an equaliser goal scored by Jorge Martínez in the 85th minute.

In January 2011, Catania decided to remove Giampaolo from his position due to poor results and replace him with former Argentine football player Diego Simeone, who managed to guide the Sicilians to safety before to part company by the end of the season, after only four months in charge of the team.

Later, Catania appointed 37-year-old Vincenzo Montella to replace Simeone at his second managerial experience after having served as caretaker at Roma during the final part of the 2010–11 season.

Following three auctions and a takeover offer by entrepreneur Benedetto Mancini, the club's provisional exercise by the Tribunal of Catania effectively ended on 9 April 2022, leading to its immediate exclusion from the 2021–22 Serie C season.

[18] In June 2022, Australian development industry entrepreneur Ross Pelligra, whose mother was born in Catania, was assigned by the city the right to register a new club in the Italian Serie D, in compliance with Article 52 of N.O.I.F.

He promised to invest economical resources, with the main goal to bring back Catania in Serie A, additionally showing interest in acquiring the Torre Del Grifo training center, built during the Pulvirenti era.

It has been proposed that the club would move to a 33,765 seater stadium named Stadio Dèi Palici, which is to be located in the southern outskirts of the city of Catania in an industrial zone called Pantano d'Arci.

[21] Catania trains at the Torre del Grifo Village sports center, inaugurated on 18 May 2011 and located in the adjacent municipality of Mascalucia.

Owned by the Etna club, the centre covers an area of 150,000 m2 and has four regulation football fields—two with natural grass and two with synthetic grass—two swimming pools, and four gyms.