Hellas Verona Football Club was founded in 1903 in Verona, a city in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy. The club traces its origins to a group of students at the Liceo Scipione Maffei, who adopted the name "Hellas" — the Greek word for Greece — at the suggestion of a classics professor. After decades of modest ambition, the club first reached Serie A in 1957, and by the late 1960s had established itself as a consistent presence in Italy's top flight.
The defining chapter in the club's history came in the 1984–85 season, when Hellas Verona, coached by Osvaldo Bagnoli, claimed the Serie A title — the only scudetto in the club's history. Built around players such as Danish striker Preben Elkjær, West German defender Hans-Peter Briegel, and Giuseppe Galderisi, the squad overcame more storied rivals to finish four points clear. It remains the only Italian top-flight championship won by a club from a city that is not a regional capital. The club had also reached the Coppa Italia final twice in the early 1980s, and competed in European football across that era, including a run to the UEFA Cup quarterfinals in 1988.
After financial difficulties and a period of decline that included a spell in Serie C in the late 2000s, Hellas Verona returned to Serie A and in the early 2020s recorded three consecutive top-half finishes. The club's colours are yellow and blue, drawn from Verona's civic coat of arms, and its nicknames — the Mastiffs and the Scaligeri — reference the Della Scala dynasty that ruled the city in medieval times. The local derby against Chievo Verona, known as the Derby della Scala, is a fixture that has historically defined the club's identity within the city.