US-owned Italian side Campobasso promoted to Serie C

Italian soccer club Campobasso has earned promotion from Serie D to Serie C for the 2024/25 campaign. The team is currently co-owned by American celebrity couple Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa. The duo previously helped purchase the team back in 2022. Campobasso was sent down to the fifth tier of Italian soccer at the time due to financial irregularities surrounding the previous ownership.

Consuelos and Ripa initially met on the set of the hit soap opera All My Children in 1995. The actors then married a year later and have since had three children together. Consuelos has also made appearances on Friends, Riverdale, and American Horror Story. The American now co-hosts the talk show Live with Kelly and Mark with his wife.

Actors joined the ownership group with fellow American investor

While the celebrity couple receives most of the attention for owning Campobasso, there are other investors involved at the club. North Sixth Group, an investment firm headed by Matt Rizzetta, led the aforementioned takeover of the team. Rizzetta also currently owns new USL side Brooklyn FC. The New York club is set to field a women’s team later this year and then a men’s side in the USL Championship in 2025.

Along with Campobasso and Brooklyn FC, Rizzetta’s firm also owns lower-level Swiss side FC Locarno. With the Americans at the helm, the Italian club earned promotion in their first season last year. The Wolves previously topped 2022/23 Excellence Molise by winning 28 of their 30 league games. They only conceded 10 total goals throughout the entire campaign.

Campobasso dominating opponents en route to another promotion

Campobasso then earned promotion to Serie C this season after winning Serie D’s Group F. The club topped the table with one match remaining on the fixture list after losing just four matches all season. The Wolves avoided potential playoffs by dominating their division. They currently have the most wins and goals as well as the best goal differential in the group.

Serie C will present the club will a relatively new challenge. Campobasso started back in 1919. It previously played five consecutive seasons in Serie B in the mid-1980s. The highest the club has ever finished in the Italian leagues is seventh in the second-tiered Italian division.

Based about 90 miles northeast of Naples, Campobasso’s most famous victory came against Juventus in the Coppa Italia during the 1984/85 campaign. Around 40,000 supporters attended the historic victory, nearly double of the club’s stadium capacity.

Nevertheless, the Wolves experienced a tough downfall following the relative success in the 80’s. Campobasso suffered three relegations in four years and ownership declared bankruptcy in 1990. After decades of bouncing back and forth between the lower tiers of Italian soccer, the new American investors seem to have the club back on track.

Serie C consists of 60 professional clubs geographically split into three different groups. Former Italian top-flight teams such as Catania, Pescara, and Messina currently feature in the third-tiered division.

PHOTOS: IMAGO.