It was 24 July 1923, therefore exactly 98 years ago, when Agnelli became president of the Juventus Football Club for the first time. The love story between the family of entrepreneurs who founded Fiat and the most successful football club in Italy therefore began almost a century ago, with the appointment as president of Edoardo Agnelli, father of the lawyer Giovanni Agnelli, who in the meantime he had already been born, two years before. Upon accession as president Edoardo, born in Verona in 1892, was just 31 years old and remained in office until his premature death in 1935. Son of the founder of Fiat Giovanni Agnelli (namesake of his future nephew), Edoardo was also vice president of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino as well as chairman of the board of directors of the family newspaper La Stampa. His association with the black and white colors was triumphant and was the precursor to the numerous successes of the following decades: under his presidency, Juventus won six championships in ten years, five of which were consecutive.
Furthermore, Edoardo Agnelli brought innovative management to the Turin company, diversifying the activities (the bowling and tennis sections were born) and promoting the turn towards professionalism and the establishment – as it later happened – of a unified national football championship, on the English model. A great sports fan but not only football, the first of the Juventus Agnelli also linked his name to skiing, founding a winter resort that will soon become prestigious and famous: Sestrière, from the name of the homonymous hill, which can be reached from the village of origin of the Agnelli family, Villar Perosa, located shortly after Pinerolo coming from Turin. Edoardo Agnelli's life was cut short at the age of just 43 by a serious accident aboard a seaplane, on a journey that took her from Forte dei Marmi to Genoa, where, however, she lost her life following the overturning of the aircraft during landing. The circumstances of the accident were somewhat unfortunate.
He left his first heir, Giovanni, when he was just a teenager: the future lawyer later became the great boss of Fiat during the years of the economic boom, and he was president of Juventus from 1947 to 1954, and then honorary president until 1994, when he left the reins to his brother Umberto, however when the Boniperti era had already begun, who as a player had been wanted and bought by Gianni Agnelli. The dynasty now continues with Andrea Agnelli, nephew of the lawyer, son of Umberto Agnelli.
