Sampdoria sold its stars under Ferrero, fell out of Serie A, then neared Serie C

Sampdoria won the Scudetto in 1991, but BBC Sport's March 2025 retrospective traces a long slide after president Paolo Mantovani's death in 1993 and the sale of its best players. The club was relegated to Serie B in 1999 and returned in 2003, but the report says the real damage came after Massimo Ferrero bought it in 2014 and took on its growing debts. What followed, it says, was seven years of selling the best players, spending little on replacements and regularly flirting with relegation. One journalist said Ferrero was more concerned with his own image than with the club prospering.

In December 2021 Ferrero was arrested in a corporate-crimes and bankruptcy investigation unrelated to the club and resigned as president. The club "effectively ceased to function", narrowly avoided relegation in 2022 and went down in 2023 amid reports of unpaid player wages. A consortium led by Andrea Radrizzani and Matteo Manfredi's Gestio Capital bought it, and Gestio invested about £45m in the first season.

The new owners did not stabilise it. Andrea Pirlo, a World Cup winner hired as coach for 2023-24, was dismissed three games into the next season, Andrea Sottil lasted four wins in 14 games, and Leonardo Semplici was sacked in April after supporters pelted the team bus with stones and flares. Alberico Evani became the fourth coach of the season.

Relegated from Serie A in 2023, and by March 2025 facing a relegation play-off to the third tier.

Under Ferrero the club sold its best players and spent little on replacements for seven years.

Ferrero took on the club's growing debts, and it kept flirting with relegation.

After Ferrero's arrest, with no funds and him refusing to relinquish control, the club could not function.

New owners changed coaches repeatedly instead of building the sporting structure analysts said was needed.

An owner who treats a club as a personal stage and a new owner who changes coach every few months both starve it of a plan.

Sampdoria were given a lifeline when Brescia were deducted four points over financial irregularities, pending appeal, which left Sampdoria needing to beat Salernitana over a two-legged relegation play-off to avoid the drop. Analysts told the BBC the club needed a proper project, a sporting directorship and a proper manager. The BBC's text does not report how the play-off ended. Gestio Capital and its investors controlled 99.96% of the club, and Radrizzani had since sold his shares.