In the 1980's it was Britain that suffered at the hands of the hooligans, now it is Italy. The events of last weekend are the culmination of regular violence that has infested Italian soccer for some time.
Italy won the world cup in 2006 while in the middle of a corruption scandal involving some of the major clubs in Serie A. The fans regularly clash violently, and now a tragic incident has lead to the death of a young man. It isn't right for me to comment on the events that lead to the shooting, but the violence committed by the so-called fans afterwards is unforgivable. We live in a "civilized" society, but it is hard to believe it when you see the news pictures of this weekend. It really is about time that the politicians, the soccer governing body and the clubs are held accountable.

Yes Sardoman, there are several news about what is happening in soccer on the news portion of this website:

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/news_sport.asp

Yes Sardoman, there are several news about what is happening in soccer on the news portion of this website:

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/news/news_sport.asp

I've been reading them and following it on TV here. It took years to solve the problem in Britian and it never got as bad as this has.

Does anything like this happen in the US? I get the impression that American football and baseball are all conducted under a good family atmosphere.

The worlds absolutely worst football hooligans are from Argentina. There the firms runs their clubs, and thus there's little to do about them. Banning violent hooligans from attending football matches, and forcing the clubs to take the problem seriously are both necesseary measures. I've no idea how deep the connections run from hooligans and into the management of Italian football clubs, but without severing such links it's near impossible to eradicate large scale football violence. It doesn't imporave the situation that most football hooligans believe they actually help their club, thinking that the football matches are naturally extended beyond the field.

(as a funny sidenote - Discovery recently ran a series on football hooligans worldwide - many of the Argentinian hooligans they interviewed had napolitanian accents xD)

Ah, and we've certainly got hooligans in Norway too, but at least they're being kept at bay.

Despite its problems on the terraces I'm grateful to be living in Italy, because now that England have failed to qualify for the FIFA Euro 2008 championships I can still support Italy who have qualified :o

The word “hooligan” which the American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language defines as a “tough and aggressive or violent youth”entered the British lexicon only in the 19th century, but its presence has been felt ever since, especially in football. One of the anthems of football hooligans is: “There's a George in my heart, keep me English,/There's a George in my heart, I pray, /There's a George in my heart, keep me English, /Keep me English till my dying day. /No surrender, no surrender, no surrender to the IRA”

But hooliganism is not English alone, and has now spread across the world.

Experts feel that at its roots hooliganism happens because hooligans now try to create disorder in order to regain lost territory, and reaffirm the working-class nature of the game.

Football seems to have changed over the years because of the clubs becoming more commercialised and removed from football's earlier grass-root ethos. For the relatively poorer man, it is felt, giving rowdy support is their way of becoming part of the game, which has increasingly become sanitised and upper-class.

Well, there are hooligans at every football club, that's a fact.

If the authorities tackled the problem earlier, then I don't think we would be hearing about these incidents that have occurred over the last few months.

Bubbles, what you say is correct. For the poor-man, football is no longer affordable.

I certainly hope that the Italian leagues do not become similar to that of Scotland and England, where prices for tickets are at cheapest around £22 to watch a high level match.

Football was created for "working" persons. I have some old photos from pre-1960 taken during a match where my team was playing. The crowd was just over 80,000 and there were people sitting on the roof of the stadium watching. Now though, my club is struggling to get 12,000 spectators every week. Why? The game is on television, the tickets prices are too high - nobody (myself included) wants to pay that much to watch a poor match played by overpaid players. If I didn't love my club and city so much, I wouldn't pay it, no doubt about it. But it's because of SKY television, sponsors and high paid players we have to pay so much to see the game. The club knows that there are groups of supporters who love their club so much that they will pay any amount of money to watch the match. This is WRONG and I hate it with a passion.

I admire Italian football - it's attractive, it's not expensive and the supporters ARE the best. When I visit Genova I stand with Ultras Tito Sampdoria in the Gradinata Sud. It's a wonderful passion - songs, fireworks, flags...a brilliant experience.

But I pray that when they finally bring and end to hooliganism in Italy they do not take away the fantastic choreographies in the stadium made by the supporters.

They should not follow the "English model", it will only kill the game.

FYI, I myself am "ultra" but not violent.

CIAO GABRIELE!
From Red Ultras Aberdeen, Scotland.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s80/greenbrigade/aberdeen/ru/0007.jpg

From The Sun-Herald...

Postcard from Italy: God, Sex, and Death

"We will win it for Gabriele," claimed Lorenzo Di Silvestre.
The Lazio defender was making more than cliched comments ahead of his team's game against Parma.

This match was the first home game for Lazio since the death of Gabriele Sandri, a 28-year-old Lazio fan who had been a DJ at Di Silvestre's birthday party not so long ago.

Sandri, on his way to a Lazio game two weeks earlier, had been shot and killed by police as he sat in a car.

You can read some background here. (http://football.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-7073548,00.html)

The details remain for an official enquiry but what is agreed is that a highway cop at a roadside rest stop shot Sandri after some sort of encounter between Lazio and Juventus supporters.

Police claim the shot that killed Sandri - which came from across the other side of the highway - was not intentional but the death sparked violence in Rome and Milan.
The incident - and the fallout - united rivals against the police who -Â despite their smart uniforms - are poorly paid in Italy. Some would argue that at least the cops have a job.
The latest incident was the last thing Italian football needed, still suffering since it won the 2006 World Cup.

Betting scandals, corruption, fan violence, and the murder last season of a policeman during the Catania-Palermo Sicilian derby are far from the ideal picture of a football-loving country that has made significant contributions to society across the world (and I'm not just talking about pizza).

So, where else to be but Rome on the weekend that Lazio would play their first home game since Sandri's death and funeral?

Arriving on a Friday, the talk around town before the Sunday game was not so much about Lazio's poor form.

Local TV is always a revealing window into a culture.

Roman channels broadcast endless chat shows, live church services, infomercials spruiking bizarre weight loss machines, and gave significant airtime to scantily clad teenagers and women wielding dangerous cleavage.
http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/matthewhall/ItaliaTV%201.jpg
I took this snap of the TV: "Lazio will play Parma... giggle... giggle..."

http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/matthewhall/Italia%20TV%202.jpg
"And Roma will play... giggle... giggle..." Seriously, that's all she does.

Italy, like the world, it is complex, contradictory, and not always easy to understand nor explain.

In between TV news bulletins on upcoming cardinal elections at the Vatican, there was footage of a police clampdown on potentially violent tifosi - Italian hooligans.

One report revealed serious-looking policemen holding up a range of weapons - knives and batons - and t-shirts baring a confused combination of logos that included the St George cross and World War Two German army helmets.

But the news item that followed gave another insight into the reality of life in 21st century Italy.

A reporter had travelled to the outskirts of Rome to uncover a spectacular local equivalent to Rio's favellas - a ghetto of temporary housing or, as the report described, "a fantasy street for those without a home."

This was a long way from the designer labels of Via Condotti, the riches of the Vatican, or the tourist hordes surrounding the Coliseum.

This was a sign that in Italy, like many countries across modern Europe, all is not a picture postcard.

On Sunday, it rained. This was probably fitting for the events that would play out over the following few hours.

Joining us on the #2 tram from Piazzale Flaminio up to Piazza Mancini, there were just three Lazio fans, all teenage guys, looking to meet up with their friends before the game.

Walking across the Tiber towards the Stadio Olimpico, lapping the stadium, and searching for the booth to collect tickets, there was one dominant question.
Where was everybody?

Maybe at the local Autogrill, having lunch. Maybe at home, watching on TV. But certainly not here.

There was an absence of not only fans but police, scarf sellers, program hawkers, anyone.

For all it appeared, the game may well have not been on.

But if the crowd was sparse outside the Stadio Olimpico, inside was a ghost ship.
The Stadio Olimpico holds 83,000 when full. This match kicked off in front of maybe 12,000 people. Not a bad crowd for the A-League but not so great for a cavernous bowl in one of the world's football cradles.
http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/matthewhall/Olimpico%20before.jpg
(Here's the snapshot evidence... an empty Curva Nord.)

The stadium was silent. Eerily silent. So silent you could hear the players call for the ball, coaches bawl out bad passes, and referees bark down protests.

If they held a game and no one came, would it still exist? Today, as far as the Lazio hardcore was concerned, that was the point.

The empty stands, especially the usually bouncing Curva Nord - home to Lazio's Ultras - were a silent tribute to Sandri. They were also a protest against what fans see as police brutality and proposed measures to clamp down on violence (ID cards, among other ideas, have been mooted).

This protest was also a show of strength. Silence is golden - without us, you are nothing.

The Curva Nord - renamed the Gabriele Sandri Curva Nord for the day - was draped in banners.

GABRIELE: YOU ARE ALWAYS IN OUR HEARTS.
GABRIELE WOULD HAVE WANTED THIS.

A giant mural, taken from a photograph of Sandri, hung from the fence that separates the crowd from the pitch.

Suddenly, after 20 long minutes had counted out on the match clock, thousands of people poured out from within the stadium's inner stairwells and cascaded like a wave down the once-empty stands towards the pitch.

The Curva Nord filled like a flood.

"GABRIELE!!!" they chanted.

Just the one word.

The one name.

"GABRIELE!!!"

For the next 10 minutes, the tifosi unveiled a series of choreographed movements and displays across the Curva Nord in tribute to their dead friend.
http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/matthewhall/Olimpicoafter.jpg
Hang on, here they are - another snapshot around 25 minutes into the game.

Then, on exactly 30 minutes, the fans were sucked back up into the stadium and were gone.

Meanwhile, there was a game occurring on the pitch but Lazio were poor.

They did have record holder Marco Ballotta in goal but his claim to fame is that at almost 44, he is the oldest ever player to appear in Serie A and the UEFA Champions Leagu (http://www.skysports.com/football/player/0,19754,11862_154962,00.html)e.

The game seemed certain to end in a 0-0 draw and Di Silvestre's earlier promise to win for Sandri would go unfulfilled.

Then Lazio reminded us why, especially in Italy, it's best to stay in your seat until at least the 91st minute.

As the referee checked his watch, and just as Parma were feeling confident they would leave Rome with at least a point, Fabio Firmani's scuffed shot ricocheted off Damiano Zenoni and pinged into the net.

Watch here.

Firmani, the other native Roman in the Lazio team, didn't care how the ball ended up in the net.

He ran, faster than he had all match, toward the giant mural of Sandri hung on the Curva Nord fence.

He pulled off his Lazio strip to reveal a white t-shirt dedicated to the dead fan, kissed Sandri's portrait, exchanged high-fives with tifosi and, in tears, trotted back to the pitch to receive a yellow card.

Even if Firmani is to score a last-minute winner for Italy in the 2010 World Cup Final, it would be difficult to imagine a greater emotional outpour.

"The goal was worth a career," Firmani said after the game. "It's as if I could give Gabriele that goal."

As John MacDonald, an Australian studying at a seminary in Rome, explained a few days later over a cappuccino, where there is good there is evil, always trying to make a mark.

But, equally, where there is evil there is also good, or at least the potential for it.

At the final whistle, Firmani ran back to the tifosi at the end of the game and threw his t-shirt to the crowd.

In Rome, a city of statues, churches, and general ancientness, symbolism counts for a lot.

In Italy, despite its problems, there is wide agreement on one thing. Football is life and life is football.

Firmani's goal had made it clear that one man's mistake - that of a policeman or a footballer - is another man's destiny.

You are so right! It's certainly not a good time and in a way or in another seems that we always find the way to attract shadows on our football or on the serie A, the scandal with the 'phone cards' , the referees and Moggi from Juventus was the major scandal in the history of Italian Calcio!