The club have won 18 officially recognized international titles, tied with Boca Juniors as having the most in the world. Milan have won four world titles, more than any other club in the world; they have won the Intercontinental Cup 3 times and the FIFA Club World Cup once. AC Milan have also won what is today known as the UEFA Champions League on seven occasions; only Real Madrid have won it more times (9).[3] As for Italian Serie A titles, Milan are tied with Internazionale for being the second most successful club with 17 league titles; only Juventus have won more (27).[4]
Other important titles won by Milan include the European Super Cup a record five times, and the Cup Winners' Cup twice; however, they have never reached the UEFA Cup final (only two semi-finals in 1972 and 2002). This is the only official trophy in existence that Milan has never won. In Italy, they have won the Coppa Italia five times, as well as five Italian Super Cups. Milan is also one of the G-14’s founding members, a group that represented eighteen of the largest and most prestigious European football clubs before its disbandment.[5]
Their home games are played at San Siro, also known as the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. The ground, which is shared with rivals Internazionale, is the largest in Italian football, with total capacity of 80,018.
History
Further information: History of A.C. Milan
Herbert Kilpin, the first captain of AC Milan
The club was founded as a cricket club in 1899 by British expatriates Alfred Edwards and Herbert Kilpin, who came from the British city of Nottingham. In honor of its origins, the club has retained the English spelling of its city's name, instead of changing it to the Italian Milano (though it was forced to do it during the fascist regime, like Genoa and Internazionale); it should be noted that the Italian pronunciation is actually MEE-lan, respecting Italian style disliking stressing a word last syllable. Milan won their first Italian championship title in 1901, and then again in 1906 and 1907.
In 1908 the club experienced a split caused by internal disagreements over the signing of foreign players, which led to the forming of another Milan-based team, Internazionale. Following these events, Milan did not manage to win a single domestic title until 1950-51. In 1963 they ensured their first continental title, winning European Cup beating Benfica in the final. This success was repeated in 1969, and followed by an Intercontinental Cup title the same year. Following retirement of Gianni Rivera, Milan started a declining period, during which they were involved in the 1980 Totonero scandal and were relegated to Serie B as punishment, for the first time in their history. The scandal was centred on a betting syndicate paying players and officials to fix the outcome of matches. Milan quickly returned back to Serie A, but returned to Serie B only one year later as they ended their 1981-82 Serie A campaign in the relegation zone.
In 1986, entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi acquired the club, and immediately invested a lot of money in the team, appointing rising coach Arrigo Sacchi at the helm of the rossoneri and signing a Dutch trio of Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten and Frank Rijkaard. This was the beginning of the most successful time in the club's history, as AC Milan won seven domestic titles, five UEFA Champions League trophies, and three Intercontinental Cups.
More recently, Milan were involved in the 2006 Serie A scandal where five teams were accused of fixing matches by selecting favourable referees. Even if police inquiry excluded any involvement of Milan managers, FIGC, led by former Inter Vice President Guido Rossi, unilaterally decided it had sufficient evidences to charge Milan Vice President Adriano Galliani: as result, Milan were initially punished with a 15 point deduction and consequently did not qualify for the UEFA Champions League. An appeal saw their penalty reduced to 8 points and allowed to retain their 2006-07 Champions League participation, where they won the competition.
Club statistics and records
Throughout the entire history of the club, they have been represented by the colours red and black. The colours were chosen to represent the players' fiery ardour (red) and the opponents' fear to challenge the team (black). Due to Milan's striped red and black shirts, they have gained the nickname rossoneri.[31] White shorts and black socks are worn as part of the home kit.
Milan's away strip has always been completely white. The latter is considered by both the fans and the club as their "lucky" strip in Champions League finals, due to the fact that Milan won six finals out of eight in an all white strip (losing only to Ajax in 1995 and Liverpool in 2005), while they only won one out of three in their home strip. The third kit changes yearly and is black with red trim for the current season, but it is rarely used.
For many years, Milan's badge was just that of the flag of Milan; which was originally the flag of Saint Ambrose.[32] Another nickname derived from the club's colours is "the Devil". An image of a red devil was used as Milan's logo at one point with a Golden Star for Sport Excellence located next to it;[32] the star was awarded to the club when they won 10 league titles. Currently, the badge represents the club colours and the flag of the Comune di Milano, with the acronym ACM at the top and the foundation year (1899) at the bottom.[32]
Stadium
The team's current stadium is the 80,018 seat San Siro, officially known as Stadio Giuseppe Meazza after the former player who represented both Milan and Internazionale. The name San Siro is taken from the district where it's located. San Siro is the home ground of Milan by 1926, when it was privately built by the club. The stadium is shared with Internazionale from 1946, when the other major Milanese football club was accepted as joint tenant. The stadium is well known for its fantastic atmosphere due to the closeness of the stands to the pitch. There is the frequent use of flares by the fans which often cause trouble.
On 19 December 2005, Milan vice-president and executive director Adriano Galliani announced that the team is seriously working to move out from San Siro. He said that Milan's new stadium will be largely based on the Veltins-Arena and following the standards of football stadiums in the United States, Germany and Spain. It will likely be a stadium for football purposes only (with no athletics track). The new stadium is supposed to be named after a sponsor.[33] It remains to see if this plan will proceed or if this is just a ploy to force the owners (Comune di Milano) to sell the stadium to Milan for a nominal fee so as to proceed with extensive renovations. Rumours have also surfaced of Internazionale's intention to also build a new stadium which may also affect this decision.