Rising From the Ashes: Phoenix Clubs Across Europe You Should Know

The recent demise of Brescia Calcio is truly devastating.

One of the Serie A’s founding members and a pillar of Italian football, who have bred several superstars such as Pep Guardiola, Roberto Baggio and Robert Pirlo. All of that history just to now be banished from existence because of financial turmoil.

This is not the first time we have seen this sore sight either. There have been several clubs in the history of football that have suffered the sport’s worst-case scenario, leaving the fans and community in neglect.

Fortunately for a few of them, there has been light made out of the tragic situations, with a handful of phoenix clubs having been birthed in honour of their predecessors. To clarify, a ‘phoenix club’ is a new club created to replace and honour a club that had gone bust or been expelled from its league – often referred to by a similar name.

This is the route Brescia are attempting to take. On that note, lets have a look at some of the phoenix clubs that are prospering in today’s game.

AFC Wimbledon

The saga of the original Wimbledon FC in the early 2000s is truly unforgivable. They were once a Premier League outfit with an FA Cup in their trophy cabinet, until a disappointing relegation from the top flight in the year of the millennium, snowballed a shameful few years.

The club were intent on relocating to the evolving town of Milton Keynes, 60 miles away from Wimbledon. The fans rightly despised this idea, but without batting an eyelid, the club went ahead with it anyway.

🔵🟡 Crazy scenes as Wimbledon score 94th minute winner vs bitter rivals MK Dons!

History: Wimbledon F.C. was controversially relocated to Milton Keynes and renamed MK Dons. Fans therefore formed AFC Wimbledon, creating huge rivalry. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 pic.twitter.com/wAH5JCOyOD

— EuroFoot (@eurofootcom) March 2, 2024

This caused the supporters of Wimbledon FC to launch an entirely new club, named ‘AFC Wimbledon’ – which the many fans switched their allegiance to. As a result of Wimbledon FC’s actions, their attendances plummeted, eventually putting them into administration in 2003 at the same time of their Milton Keynes move.

At the end of that following season, the club were bought out of administration and renamed to MK Dons with an entirely new identity.

Fast-forward 21 years later, AFC Wimbledon have built themselves all the way back up the English pyramid and now find themselves playing League One football for the sixth season in the phoenix club’s short history. Ironically the level they are now is greater than MK Dons current fourth division status.

A word on your support. Where do we even start. We said we would takeover Wembley and you did just that. A yellow and blue wall that never stopped singing. You brought this promotion home with us. We are one family. We are Wimbledon. 💛💙#AFCW 🟡🔵 pic.twitter.com/dXLNgHLCvs

— AFC Wimbledon (@AFCWimbledon) May 27, 2025

ACF Fiorentina

Fiorentina are known as one of the most historic clubs in Italian football. But it is not until you dive deep, you realise that the Fiorentina we all know today is a club re-established from its origins less than 25 years ago.

After almost eight years of rich history, competing for titles and playing in the Champions League, Fiorentina suffered huge distress in the early 2000s. Their financial situation had been revealed, and it was extremely concerning. They were struggling to pay staff wages, were in debts of approximately €45 million and had entered administration on the summer of 2002.

Ultimately, these financial woes refused them a place in the Serie B upon their relegation and terminated the club as a whole.

That same summer - under brand-new ownership - a phoenix club had risen named Fiorentina Viola, to maintain the club’s long-lasting legacy. They were initially entered into the fourth tier of Italian football – Serie C2 – with only one player left over from Fiorentina’s previous outfit.

By the time the reincarnated club finished its first season, they had already been promoted after topping the Serie C2. Then, due to the club’s extraordinary case, they were able to automatically leapfrog the Serie C2, placing Viola in the second tier upon merit.

After just two years of their re-founding, Fiorentina managed to gain promotion from the Serie B after finishing in a playoff spot, and were once again back in the top flight.

The club have since had their name reinstated back to ACF Fiorentina, played in the Champions League and remained in the Serie A for 21 years now.

🟣 Fiorentina are through to the #UECLfinal in back-to-back seasons 👏 pic.twitter.com/vAcPGdP5P6

— UEFA Conference League (@Conf_League) May 8, 2024

Bury AFC

Bury AFC are one of the most recent established phoenix clubs in football, and another one from the English footballing pyramid. However, following an alternate plot to AFC Wimbledon.

2019 was a rollercoaster year for lower league football – Bury FC in particular. The Greater Manchester side gained automatic promotion into the third tier in the spring, but just a few weeks into to League One’s 2019/20 commencement, both Bury Football Club and Bolton Wanderers were on a stopwatch schedule for many of the wrong reasons.

Throughout that year, Bury’s wages were being left unpaid, they had outstanding debt owed to HMRC, incomes were low, and millions of pounds were due elsewhere. This led to the club being stuck on a timer to repay all debt, alongside their League One counterpart Bolton.

When the due date arrived, Bolton escaped through new investment but Bury were left crashing down and as a result, expelled from the EFL. They were the first club to be banished from the Football League in 27 years.

Today is a sad day.@buryfcofficial have been expelled from the @EFL. One of England’s oldest football clubs, with a 134 year old history, are the first team to drop out of the Football League since 1992. pic.twitter.com/yQdFFifvGz

— COPA90 (@Copa90) August 27, 2019

Three months after their expulsion, supporters gathered together to create a new form of Bury, titled Bury AFC - starting right from the very bottom of the pyramid.

As you see with many phoenix clubs, they tend to hit the ground running fairly swiftly, but that was not the case with Bury AFC. During their first official season as a club, the non-League divisions were all regarded null and void, due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s interruption.

However, the season following, the club finally succeeded the North West Counties Football League Division North, up to Step 5 of non-League. As of today, Bury’s phoenix club have just been promoted from the North West Counties League Premier Division and are back on track to climb the English divisions once again.