Gazzetta dello Sport
Italy's leading daily sports newspaper, founded 1896, setting the agenda in Italian football debate.
Last refreshed: 5 April 2026
Why does Italy's pink sports newspaper still set the agenda in the age of social media?
Latest on Gazzetta dello Sport
- Why is the Gazzetta dello Sport printed in pink?
- The pink colour is a long-standing tradition dating to the paper's founding in 1896; it distinguishes the rosea from competitors and has become part of Italian sporting identity.Source: background
- Does Gazzetta dello Sport organise the Giro d'Italia?
- Yes. The paper created and still organises the Giro d'Italia cycling race, which began in 1909.Source: background
- Who owns La Gazzetta dello Sport?
- RCS MediaGroup, which has owned it since 1976.Source: quick_facts
Background
La Gazzetta dello Sport was founded on 3 April 1896 in Milan, timed to cover the first modern Olympic Games in Athens. It is printed on distinctive pink newsprint — the rosea — and is the most widely read daily newspaper of any kind in Italy. The paper organises the Giro d'Italia cycling race, which it created in 1909, and has historically been the primary media forum for Italian football debate. It was Gazzetta that first reported the FIGC's interest in Pep Guardiola as Italy coach following Gennaro Gattuso's resignation in April 2026.
Owned by RCS MediaGroup since 1976, Gazzetta has seen its print circulation decline from over 800,000 in 1990 to roughly 143,000 by 2019, a pattern shared with European sports press broadly. Its digital platforms and television presence have partly offset this, and its reporting on Italian football carries disproportionate influence relative to its circulation: transfer stories, coaching rumours and federation controversies are routinely broken or amplified by Gazzetta before spreading to international media.
In the current Italian football crisis, Gazzetta is functioning as both reporter and participant: its editorial line on the coaching vacancy shapes the public debate, and its investigative reporting on stadium failures contributed to the pressure on the FIGC and government to act. The paper's coverage of the UEFA threat to Euro 2032 co-hosting rights brought the stadium crisis to the widest possible Italian audience.