[4] Associazione Calcio Fiorentina was founded in the autumn of 1926 by local noble and National Fascist Party member Luigi Ridolfi Vay da Verrazzano,[5] who initiated the merger of two older Florentine clubs, CS Firenze and PG Libertas.

The aim of the merger was to give Florence a strong club to rival those of the more dominant Italian Football Championship sides of the time from Northwest Italy.

The team consisted of players such as well-known goalkeeper Giuliano Sarti, Sergio Cervato, Francesco Rosella, Guido Gratton, Giuseppe Chiappella, Aldo Scaramucci, Brazilian Julinho, and Argentinian Miguel Montuori.

Fiorentina became the first Italian team to play in a European Cup final, when a disputed penalty led to a 2–0 defeat at the hands of Alfredo Di Stéfano's Real Madrid.

After several years of runner-up finishes, Fiorentina dropped away slightly in the 1960s, bouncing from fourth to sixth place, although the club won the Coppa Italia and the Mitropa Cup in 1966.

Fiorentina, after an unimpressive start, then moved to the top of the Serie A, but the first half of its season finished with a 2–2 draw against Varese, leaving Cagliari as outright league leader.

In the European Cup competition the following year, Fiorentina had some good results, including a win in the Soviet Union against Dynamo Kyiv, but was eventually knocked out in the quarter-finals after a 3–0 defeat in Glasgow to Celtic.

The team consisted of young talents like Vincenzo Guerini and Moreno Roggi, who suffered bad injuries, and above all Giancarlo Antognoni, who would later become an idol to Fiorentina's fans.

After a bad injury to Antognoni, the league title was decided on the final day of the season when Fiorentina were denied a goal against Cagliari and were unable to win.

Despite a good start to the season, Cecchi Gori fired the coach, Luigi Radice, after a defeat against Atalanta,[7] and replaced him with Aldo Agroppi.

Upon their return to Serie A, Ranieri put together a good team centred around new top scorer Batistuta, signing the young talent Rui Costa from Benfica and the new world champion Brazilian defender Márcio Santos.

With Trapattoni's expert guidance and Batistuta's goals, Fiorentina challenged for the title in 1998–99 but finished the season in third, earning them qualification for the Champions League.

The following year was disappointing in Serie A, but Viola played some historical matches in the Champions League, beating Arsenal 1–0 at the old Wembley Stadium and Manchester United 2–0 in Florence.

The year 2001 heralded major changes for Fiorentina, as the terrible state of the club's finances was revealed: they were unable to pay wages and had debts of around US$50 million.

This form of bankruptcy (sports companies cannot exactly fail in this way in Italy, but they can suffer a similar procedure) meant that the club was refused a place in Serie B for the 2002–03 season, and as a result effectively ceased to exist.

Toni scored 31 goals in 38 appearances, the first player to pass the 30-goal mark since Antonio Valentin Angelillo in the 1958–59 season, for which he was awarded the European Golden Boot.

In Europe, the team proved to be a surprise dark horse: after losing their first away fixture against Lyon, they staged a comeback with a five-match streak by winning all their remaining matches (including defeating Liverpool home and away).

This was controversial due to a mistaken refereeing decision by Tom Henning Øvrebø, who allowed a clearly offside goal for Bayern in the first leg.

[12] After a brief period of improvements, the Viola were again fighting relegation, prompting the sacking of Sporting Director Pantaleo Corvino in early 2012 following a 0–5 home defeat to Juventus.

During a home game against Novara, trailing 0–2 within half an hour, manager Rossi decided to substitute midfielder Adem Ljajić early.

Ljajić sarcastically applauded him in frustration, whereupon Rossi retaliated by physical assaulting his player, an action that ultimately prompted his termination by the club.

To engineer a resurrection of the club after the disappointing season, the Della Valle family invested heavily in the middle of 2012, buying 17 new players and appointing Vincenzo Montella as head coach.

They also sold Adem Ljajić to Roma and Alessio Cerci to Torino, using the funds to bring in Mario Gómez, Josip Iličić and Ante Rebić, among others.

In 2014–15, during the 2015 winter transfer window, the team club sold star winger Juan Cuadrado to Chelsea for €30 million but were able to secure the loan of Mohamed Salah in exchange, who was a revelation in the second half of the season.

[20] Vincenzo Montella was confirmed as coach for the first season of the new era despite the team's poor end to the previous campaign, which saw them finish only three points clear of the relegation zone.

[citation needed] Dated 1930 and born only four years after the creation of the club, the song was written by a 12-year-old child, Enzo Marcacci, and musically arranged by maestro Marco Vinicio.

Failing to have financial support from the owner Vittorio Cecchi Gori, the club was forced to windup due to its huge imbalance in operating income.

[52] After the club failed to qualify to Europe at the end of 2009–10 Serie A, as well as lack of player profit, Fiorentina turnover was decreased from €140,040,713 in 2009 to just €79,854,928, despite the wage bill also falling, la Viola still made a net loss of €9,604,353.

[61][62][63] Moreover, Fiorentina also revealed that the club had a relevant football net income of minus €19.5 million in the first assessment period of UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulations in the 2013–14 season (in May 2014).

La Viola sold Juan Cuadrado to Chelsea in January 2015 for €30 million fee, to make the club eligible to 2016–17 edition of UEFA competitions.