Twice bankrupt, Como climbed from Italy's amateur tier to the Champions League
In 2004 Como went bankrupt and was thrown out of professional football entirely, restarting in Italy's top amateur division. In 2016 it collapsed again. Yet within a decade of its second rebirth, the lakeside club had reached Serie A and finished fourth, earning a first ever place in the Champions League.
Como began on 25 May 1907, launched by a committee meeting at the Taroni bar in the centre of Como, and in its early years it played friendlies against sides from Milan and neighbouring Switzerland. It reached the top division for the 1913–14 season and stayed until 1922. Its proudest early moment came in 1930–31, when the Hungarian coach Gedeon Lukács led an unbeaten promotion campaign, scoring 90 goals and conceding just 24 in 32 matches. Home since 1928 has been the Stadio Giuseppe Sinigaglia.
The decades that followed were a yo-yo. A rising Marco Tardelli helped Como back into Serie A in the mid-1970s, though it lasted just one season. The best spell began in 1984, a five-year run in the top flight in which forwards Dan Corneliusson and Stefano Borgonovo helped secure ninth place in 1986. Then came decline, a brief return to Serie A in 2002–03 that ended bottom of the table, and financial ruin.
After the first bankruptcy the club spent three seasons in Serie D before rising again. The second collapse led to auctions of its assets and, eventually, a new company refounding the club in 2017, again in the fourth tier.
The turnaround came in 2019, when the Indonesian brothers Robert Budi Hartono and Michael Bambang Hartono bought Como through their Djarum Group, making them the richest owners in Italian football. Promotion to Serie A in 2024 ended a 21-year absence. The team finished tenth on its return, then fourth in 2025–26, its first European qualification since the Mitropa Cup of 1980–81. Among the minority shareholders are the coach Cesc Fàbregas and the former France striker Thierry Henry.
Source: Como 1907
