Can Italy remove racism from football?

Over the weekend we once again saw more racist behaviour in Italy when bananas were thrown at Milan’s Kevin Constant by Atalanta fans during the their 2-1 defeat.

After that incident Atalanta manager Stefano Colantuono told Gazzetta dello Sport: “Whoever threw the banana on the pitch deserves to have a coconut thrown back at them, they’ve ruined what was a great afternoon.”

It was only recently that Barcelona’s Dani Alves picked up a banana and ate it after one had been thrown onto the pitch.

In January 2013 a friendly match between AC Milan fourth tier side Pro Patria has been abandoned after 26 minutes following Kevin-Prince Boateng being racially abused by some of Pro Patria’s fans – the player reacted angrily, picked the ball up and kicked it towards the crowd. The referee asked Boateng to leave the pitch but instead Milan’s captain Massimo Ambrosini took his whole team off the pitch.

English fans still have not managed to shake the tag of ‘hooligans’ on the continent after the trouble they caused in the 1970s and 80s; including that tragic day in Brussels, at the 1985 European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus, when 39 supporters died.

Whilst they have cleaned up their behaviour, their Italian counterparts have only got worse. Their hardcore fans, known as the ultras, control the stands behind the goals and often incite violence with their extreme political, sometimes racist and anti-Semitic views.

At the end of last season Milan’s home game against Roma was suspended for two minutes after the away side’s ultras racially abused Mario Balotelli. There were several announcements over the loudspeaker to get the fans to stop but they continued so referee Gianluca Rocchi was forced to halt the game as per the rules in Italy.

Football fans in Italy and England are very different. The ultras use the sport as a platform to express themselves politically and get their messages heard.

In recent years the calcio name (Italian for football), has been blackened due to corruption, betting scandals, politically outspoken football players, matches abandoned due to riots, racism rows and recently even a dead player being mocked by fans.

The Italian game is full of characters. Less than ten years ago following his infamous Roman salute in front of Lazio fans after a Rome derby, Paolo Di Canio told the Daily Telegraph, “I am a fascist but not a racist.”

Ultras   

Author John Foot highlights in his book Calcio that the term ‘Ultra’ should not be confused with ‘hooligan’, despite it often being translated that way in the media.

In 1968 when AC Milan’s Fossa dei Leoni (the Lion’s Den), were formed they became the first set of Ultras. Since the 1970s clubs through all divisions have their own set of Ultras. They are so powerful that coaches, players and even club managers keep them happy so that they do not face their wrath.

When a young Roberto Baggio was sold to Juventus in 1990 by Fiorentina’s owners, the Pontello family, the fans hit the streets to riot and protest. There were over 50 injuries and parked vehicles were set on fire. The club’s owners felt they could not continue in charge and it was sold to filmmaker Mario Cecchi Gori.

Another protest took place in northern Italy by Udinese’s Ultras when they managed to halt the signing of Israeli Ronnie Rosenthal after the club discovered anti-Semitic graffiti near their offices.

Being an ultra is not just a match day activity. During the build up to a game there is a lot of preparation, the groups create and paint banners for the stadium and arrange the upcoming choreography of fans.

For the biggest games such as the derbies huge banners cover large parts of the stand when the players enter the field. The two sets of supporters try to outdo their rivals. This takes a huge amount of time and expense to get it right. The funding comes from collections around the stadium, merchandise sold and sometimes sizeable donations from wealthier fans.

Lazio’s now defunct Ultra group Irriducibili was a particularly strange case. They were so powerful that they had the rights to sell all the club’s official products. If you were to buy a shirt from the club shop then the money would go to the Ultras rather than the team.

Things are changing but slowly, it took a disaster for it to happen. Policeman Filippo Raciti was killed at the Sicilian derby after fighting broke out between Catania and Palermo in 2007.

The government brought in an anti-hooliganism law that year to prevent bulk buying of tickets. It has seen the introduction of preventive bans for anyone suspected of being a hooligan and harsher penalties against anyone causing trouble inside or outside the stadium.

Politics

A grim day for the Italian game was during March 2004, when Lazio hosted Roma. I got to the stadium with my father just over an hour before kick-off and there were already sounds of explosions going off all around us.

My father turned to me and said, “Wow, fireworks already!”

I replied, “No, it’s the police firing tear gas.”

Fans were setting off firecrackers outside the stadium and the authorities were firing tear gas into large groups. Once in the stadium the sound of fans singing was drained out by the noise of sirens going off and sporadic explosions. As the first-half wore on rumours started to spread that the police had run over a young boy outside the stadium.

All through half-time there were chants of, ‘Assassini assassini’ aimed at the police.

Not long into the second-half the leaders of Roma’s Ultras climbed onto the pitch and spoke to Roma captain Francesco Totti, a lifelong fan.

The Guardian reported that the Ultras stated, “Francé, go and stop the game, the police have killed a boy, the match must not continue.”

The Roma skipper replied, “But they’ve just said on the tannoy that the rumour isn’t true.”

After more discussions Totti went over to tell the then manager Fabio Capello, “If we play, these guys will massacre us!”

The president of the Italian Football league was Adriano Galliani, he ordered referee Roberto Rosetti to postpone match. As the fans left the stadium police vehicles and cars were set on fire, and rioting between fans and police continued until 1am the following morning, it was reported that 150 officers were injured.

Over the next few days it became apparent that the whole incident was a set-up to show the strength of the ultras. After the event it was reported in England as a ‘dark night’ for the Italian game. Sports presenter James Richardson, reported in the Guardian that the Italian media wanted the ‘English solution’ with a stewarding system, where they would have power to eject unruly fans.

Livorno are considered the most left-wing fans in Italy, if not the world. They have a huge communist following and the Italian Communist Party was formed in the town in 1921.

Earlier this season Livorno played Verona, who like Lazio have a large right-wing following. There were problems inside the stadium when Verona’s Ultras starting singing offensive songs about Piermario Morosini, a Livorno player who collapsed and died on the field in 2011 against Pescara due to an genetic heart disease.

It was similar to the medical problem that Fabrice Muamba had when he collapsed playing for English side Bolton Wanderers against Tottenham in last year’s FA Cup third round. Fortunately the Englishman was able to get medical attention and survive. British fans around the country including rival clubs sent cards and messages to the Bolton player as he recovered.

In Livorno after taunting the dead Italian player, the Ultras involved have been banned and the club was fined €50,000.

Love their shirts 

In the summer of 2004, Paolo di Canio took a large pay cut to re-join his boyhood club Lazio after a number of years playing in the English Premier league. It has been highly publicised that he is a fascist and even has a Benito Mussolini tattoo on his arm.

In his first season, Di Canio scored the opening goal in the ‘Derby della Capitale’, his team went on to beat Roma 3-1. At the end of the game he celebrated in front of the Curva Nord, where the hardcore fans stand, by making a Fascist salute. He stated he was connecting with his people and that it was a Roman salute. The authorities felt he broke the rules and he received a €10,000 fine, which the right wing political party Lega Nord offered to pay, but he declined.

At the same time as Di Canio was joining Lazio, Cristiano Lucarelli another player with strong political beliefs was making a move to Livorno. Unlike the ex-West Ham player, Lucarelli is a staunch Communist but like his political rival he also took a large pay cut of approximately a billion lire (the equivalent of £350,000) a year, to join his boyhood club. In ‘When Saturday Comes’ Chris Taylor quoted Lucarelli, “Some players buy themselves a Ferrari or yacht with a billion lire, I just bought myself a Livorno shirt.”

In the week before they met in that first season the two players went head-to-head on a national television show, not discussing football but politics. This is not a situation you would imagine happening between two English players.

Racism issues

A major problem with the Italian game is racism, often started by the Ultras. In 2012 Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur travelled to Rome to play Lazio. The night before the game a group of Spurs’ fans were having a drink in the Drunken Ship, a popular tourist pub, but an infamous location for Roma Ultras attacking English supporters.

Nine people were injured after a large group of Italians attacked the bar. Ashley Mills, received severe injuries to the head and was stabbed in the groin. It is believed that this was an ‘anti-semitic’ attack, witnesses are reported to have heard the word ‘Jew’ shouted at the travelling supporters. The North London club historically has a strong Jewish fanbase and call themselves ‘Yid Army’.

Initially Lazio distanced themselves and their fans from that incident. However the following night the football world was left disgusted as Lazio fans chanted, “Juden Tottenham.” meaning ‘Jewish Tottenham’ in German.

When Juventus played Inter Milan in 2009, the Turin fans sang racial songs about Mario Balotelli, saying there are no black Italians. The result of this was that the Turin side had to play a game behind closed doors. Despite a number of other cases involving racism there have only ever been fines handed out to clubs and nothing more serious.

It was only in the 1980s that Italy saw a high volume of imported foreign players with different ethnic backgrounds, yet racism still existed. Rather than colour of skin the issue was the north versus south divide.

The notorious Hellas Verona Ultras’s produced a banner in the 1980s during a match against Napoli that read, ‘Vesuvio facci sognare’ which translated means ‘Help us dream, Vesuvius’ suggesting that the dormant volcano overlooking the southern city will erupt again one day.

Napoli fans responded to the Veronese fans with their own banner, ‘Juliet is a slag!’ Referring to William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which was set in the northern city.

It is clear that the English and Italian games are different, especially with the latter’s hardcore supporters using their game as a platform. Surely a football stadium should only be a place for football. With players like Di Canio and Lucarelli openly flaunting their political beliefs on the field you have to ask the question; how can we expect the fans to behave differently?

There have been a lot of changes from those frightful days when football stadiums in England were not a safe place to take families. The clubs, governments, media and fellow supporters have all worked towards ridding the English game of hooliganism and racism.

Whilst both still exist unfortunately they are now in the minority rather than having the large presence they once had. As the country has developed over the last 20-30 years it has become more multicultural and accepting of others from different backgrounds and the majority of football fans will not tolerate such behaviour.

By Scott Balaam

Follow @scottbalaam

Picture provided by tasoskaimenakis.