Explained: Brescia's Downfall, The Birth of Union Brescia and a Possible Phoenix Club

Brescia. A club with a long history in Italian football. Iconic players such as Roberto Baggio, Andrea Pirlo and Luca Toni all wore the sacred badge upon their chest.

But in the blink of an eye, all of that history disappeared. After facing crippling financial troubles the storied 114-year-old club met a poignant demise which saw it cease to exist in its original identity.

A case which serves as a reminder of the treacherous path that those in the mid-range of a countries footballing hierarchy face in the modern day.

And now, we are seeing the fallout of Brescia's extinction.

From Serie C club FeralpiSalo moving and rebranding themselves as Union Brescia, to a Brescia phoenix club existing alongside the new Union Brescia still being a real possibility.

Here is everything that led up to, and everything that has happened since Brescia's extinction.

How Did Brescia Get Here?

The 'Leonessa d'italia' spent the 24/25 season battling relegation in Serie B, managing to stay up by just two points.

This result didn't last long as, after missing a 6th June deadline to pay two months worth of unpaid wages, Brescia were deducted four points and ultimately relegated to Italy's lowest professional league - Serie C.

But the Misery didn't stop there.

🥺 Se acabó. El Brescia desaparecerá.

El club no ha podido pagar la deuda de 3.000.000€ y se declara en quiebra.

114 años de historia. Día triste para el Calcio. pic.twitter.com/HqtZUCNTQO

— Fútbol Italiano 🇮🇹 (@FT_Italiano_) June 7, 2025

After continually failing to honour a €3m debt, Brescia were ultimately expelled from Italy's professional footballing pyramid.

And, with Brescia's owner unable to stump up the substantial back-payments needed to keep the club afloat, their fate was sealed with the only glimpse of hope being a merger or phoenix club situation.

Now the financial issues that we saw take hold of Brescia are seen all too often in modern football- but the owner's name attached to this particular debacle might mean more to you than most. Massimo Cellino.

Once owner of Leeds United, Cellino had a nightmarish tenure in England. Erratic decision-making, frequent manager changes and an unstable environment were all staples of his ownership.

All of that without even mentioning the ban he received in 2017, after his time at Leeds, which prevented him from any involvement in football for 12 months.

With all that being said it is safe to say that the outcome at Brescia isn't exactly surprising...

So where are we now?

FeralpiSalo's Union Brescia Rebrand

FeralpiSalo were a club initially born out of a merger when, in 2009, A.C. Salo and A.C. Feralpi Lonato came together.

Yet despite their very short history, which saw them last season play their final one as a club in Serie C, FeralpiSalo now face another rebrand- this time as Union Brescia.

🦁 New name, new identity

After Brescia went to the wall, Union Brescia will take the place of FeralpiSalo in Serie C

It’s akin to an MK Dons situation, meanwhile a different Brescia phoenix club aim to start again from the 5th tier

What we do you think - like it…or total BS? pic.twitter.com/sBX8mZgGJO

— Calcio England (@CalcioEngland) July 18, 2025

This comes after a meeting on Saturday 12th July, led by FeralpiSalo president Giuseppe Pasini, where the clubs 45 shareholders approved the change of name and the movement of the entity's headquarters.

This rebrand won't however fall under the umbrella of a merger. Instead, as stated in article 18 of the Internal Organisational rules of the F.I.G.C, it is regarded as the transfer of a sports title from the provincial city to the provincial capital.

The article states that by July 15th on any given year, it is possible to transfer the name and registered office as long as authorisation is granted by the F.I.G.C- which comes as a result of a specific set of rules and regulations being met.

To get said authorisation a club must: have been affiliated with the F.I.G.C for a minimum of two seasons, have not already changed municipalities or undergone mergers/demergers in the previous two years and moved to a neighbouring municipality in the process.

And, as you may have guessed, FeralpiSalo fit all of those categories.

The new club (Union Brescia) will play in the stadium of the original Brescia, the Rigamonti stadium, and will inherit the squad, staff and Serie C status of FeralpiSalo.

🔵⚪ Giuseppe Pasini introduces Union Brescia:
"This isn't my project, it's Brescia’s. We want to bring serious, modern football back to this city."#UnionBrescia #USBrescia #SerieCSkyWifi pic.twitter.com/2Eaoce1HGs

— Serie C English (@SerieC_Eng) July 17, 2025

Pasini's decision to, what he believes, 'save football in Brescia' has ruffled feathers with both fans of FeralpiSalo, who have had almost no say in their club's future, and fans of the original Brescia who are understandably skeptical about starting from scratch rather than preserving their history in a phoenix club.

Not only has the move ruffled feathers with fans, but also with Brescia Calcio's owner Cellino. With the new club being given the permission to use Brescia's facilities, Cellino was ordered to hand over the keys of those assets to allow Union Brescia to move in.

This is understandably something which Cellino isn't best pleased with and he has outlined his intention, in the wake of the Union Brescia announcement, to enter legal proceedings and in his words 'make it a battle'. Cellino has reportedly taken the matter to civil court where he is seeking the seizure of stadium structures such as stands, skyboxes and technical equipment from the Rigamonti Stadium as he claims ownership of them.

The issue for Cellino is, due to the way he handled the clubs finances and the debt he still hasn't settled, the courts will likely not rule in his favour.

The announced project has had implications much wider than football too with it causing tensions in the regions political landscape. The Mayor of Brescia, Laura Castelletti, has had a big influence in the formation of Union Brescia coming to fruition and has heavily backed the project after seeing the importance of restoring football to the area as quickly as possible.

However, on the opposing side, Salo's Mayor has been very vocal in condemning the move and is extremely unhappy about what, in his words, essentially removes Salo's footballing history entirely from existence.

So, it is safe to say that the announcement of this new project alone has caused a lot of stir and, without even properly establishing itself, has been extremely controversial.

And to add even more fuel to the fire, despite the formation of Union Brescia as a new entity, there is still the slim possibility that a previously mentioned phoenix club of Brescia Calcio themselves, could come to the fore in the near future.

Brescia Calcio's possible Phoenix Club

Now, onto the phoenix club situation.

Before Union Brescia was confirmed as an entity there was the suggestion, which is reportedly solidly backed, of a club called 'Calcio Brescia 1911 ASD' to be formed who would compete in the Excellenza division (5th tier) of the Italian pyramid to begin with.

Hier, un autre club, le "Calcio Brescia 1911 ASD" a été créé par Alessandro Lucà, écrivain et candidat du Mouvement Cinq Étoiles, aux élections municipales de #Brescia, avec l'intention de repartir en Eccellenza, tout en se réclamant dans la continuité du #BresciaCalcio. pic.twitter.com/V07ubK2LSk

— 1899 Mode Ultrà (@ultras1899_) July 17, 2025

The initiative of the club, set up by Alessandro Luca, is to honour the footballing pedigree of Brescia and keep the 114-year history alive to the best of its ability. In a statement put out about the club, Luca stated that there is already financial backing in place and the first steps had begun with the municipality of Brescia.

The one thing Luca did preface is that the project posed needed the backing of the Mayor of Brescia to have any chance of succeeding, and that is where the biggest issue comes in.

As mentioned, Laura Castelletti has heavily backed the Union Brescia project. This means that there is now no political motivation for the Mayor to back yet another project which would see Calcio Brescia enter the Italian leagues at a lower status than the one already backed.

Instead the most likely outcome to see a phoenix club arise would be for Brescia's provincial government to pile on pressure for a team to be entered into the 5th tier, but in Salo, to compensate for the movement of FeralpiSalo to Brescia itself and its subsequent rebranding.

Now, that doesn't mean that the proposed Calcio Brescia phoenix club is completely dead in the water. In fact there is still the possibility that the club does come to fruition, but without the full support of Brescia's Mayor that would likely be in a much less significant form than originally proposed.

Instead of entering Italy's 5th tier, the phoenix club would instead have to enter the pyramid at the 3a Categoria level which equates to the 9th tier of Italian football. Alternatively, there is the possibility of taking over another team and rebranding it as Calcio Brescia in a similar way to how Union Brescia was formed..

The issue with both of those possibilities is that they share one major problem. They defeat the entire point of the proposed phoenix club.

Preserving the history and intimacy of football in Brescia in the purest form possible makes taking over another club an inadequate option, and re-establishing in the 9th tier would likely drive the original Brescia fans away as it would take a monstrous six promotions to make it back to the level of the original club, never mind establish themselves there.

In Conclusion

If you have followed this far, it may be clear to see that this whole situation isn't exactly straightforward.

The entire saga which has unfolded at the hands of easily avoidable financial mismanagement is unfortunately an issue becoming increasingly prominent in modern football, more specifically in Italy.

#DeLaurentiis 🎙 "#SerieA & #SerieB are failing. We are all immersed in a bankrupt system.
Costs have skyrocketed and the politicians think we're all billionaires, 90% of the clubs are in debt. With these schedules we a risking the health of our players, we must intervene." pic.twitter.com/2SeUM0FkKu

— LazioLand (@Lazio_Land) July 17, 2025

The sheer number of clubs going bankrupt every season is extremely worrying. SPAL, Lucchese, Taranto, Messina... and the list could go on.

Italian football is in crisis. A huge amount of clubs don't own their own stadium, TV deals just aren't at the level of other countries like England, revenue generation is at a standstill.

It seems the sport is moving too fast for Italian football to keep up.

Brescia's shocking debacle is just yet another example of a desperately sad story. A football club both not being treated with the respect it deserves by those who own it, but also being forced to re-establish with the ideologies of a corporate business at its core rather than the expressions of the beautiful game in its heart.