Suedesi

Bury Red,

I have singled out Lazio, because of all the clubs in Europe, Lazio fans are easily the most racist, anti-Semitic, pro-fascist, and despicable of the bunch. I contend that the club is responsible for any racist, antisemitic and pro-fascist activities that take place within the football grounds. Furthermore, the football authorities have only paid lip service to this problem, and I'm appalled by the hypocrisy that characterizes Italian football.

First, Lazio has historically had connections with the brownshirts' end of the political spectrum. Mussolini adored the team, frequently appearing in the stands. The team's logo, a strident-looking eagle, looks as if it could have been ripped off of one of Mussolini's caps. And with its north Rome fan base, Lazio attracted the conservative shopkeepers and bumpkins who constituted fascism's rank and file. The tradition is not lost, as Lazio has kept links with the extreme right faction of the Alleanza Nazionale - the former fascist-turned-conservative party which now commands around 35 per cent of the vote in Rome elections. Alleanza treated the team's stadium as their recruiting grounds, and in the '80s, the ultras' politics acquired a significant racist, xenophobic bent.

During the previous two seasons, police tied Lazio's ultras to several acts of domestic terrorism. One planted a bomb at a museum dedicated to Italy's World War II resistance. Rome police also defused a Lazio bomb at a theater showing a documentary on Adolf Eichmann. On other occasions, Lazio fans have desecrated Jewish cemeteries and beaten players from opposing teams. Even by the appalling standards of Italian football, Lazio fans are object lessons in amorality.

Remarkably, Lazio reflects its fans' sentiments. Unlike Roma or almost every other team in the Series A, Lazio's roster is devoid of black players until this year when they bought Liverani, a half black player. He was greeted with "AS Roma nigger" graffiti, and whistled at together with Thuram and Davids during Lazio-Juve.
Dutchman Aron Winter, the other black player to have played for Lazio, quickly left after the team's fans hounded him with chants of "nigger Jew" (ironically his name was Aron Mohammed Winter). Sinisa Mihajlovic, unabashedly trumpeted his devotion to Slobodan Milosevic and his friendship with the Serbian paramilitary leader Arkan, whose band of thugs raped and pillaged their way across Bosnia. When Arkan was killed, Mihajlovic placed a wistful memorial notice in a Belgrade daily. Sure enough some Lazio fans unfurled a banner "Onore Alla Tigre Arkan" (Honour to Tiger Arkan) together with Celtic crosses and swastikas.

At last season's Rome derby, the notorious supporters group - the Irriducibili Ultras - unfurled a 50-metre banner around Lazio's Curva Nord section of the stadium. It read: 'Auschwitz is your town, the ovens are your houses.'

For a time, the embarrassment of Lazio could be hidden. The team spent 11 years in lower divisions and then wallowed in the middle of the Italian table. But in the late '90s it emerged as a European powerhouse, winning the UEFA Cup and lo scudetto. Lazio's rise has come at the expense of the league's health, and the club's ethos has infected the entire culture of Italian soccer. Some of Italy's best prospects, including Patrick Vieira, have refused joining Serie A. Others, like the magnificent Cafu, have bemoaned the racism and openly considered leaving Italy behind. Even Lazio's President Sergio Cragnotti talks about his club in tones of disgust, calling its fans "imbeciles," and frequently threatens resignation.

Which brings me to my second point: Cragnotti and most of the footballing authorities are insincere. For how can a relatively small number of thugs, around 4,000, be so extremly vocal in Olimpico? Can't the stadium security bust some heads, haul the cretins out, make some arrests, and, in general, quell the conduct? Sure it can!
Considering the thugs have a ready-made audience in the Stadio Olimpico, with photographers and television cameras able to capture its message and spread it around Italy, cracking down is even more urgent and pressing. Lazio should be incisive. They have the right to refuse entry to anyone they don't like. They have the right to confiscate any racist, anti-semitic and vitriolic banners, as well as arrest the propagators of such behavior. They have the ability to hire some buff security and handle such things. In short, they have the ability to stop the Ultras running the show.

The fact that they don't speaks volumes.

The League can also crack some heads. They can make it very expensive for Lazio to operate. They can pressure with fines, home ground bans, point deductions etc. Instead of taking some tough measures, they've chosen to have players wear a "Stop the Violence" t-shirt. As soon as the foto is taken, and the shirt is taken off the violence on and off the pitch resumes. If this is not hypocrisy, I don't know what is.

Fact is there are many different things that can be done. Instituting Stewards to police the stadium would be very beneficial to the clubs. While police officers can only eject individuals from grounds if they are breaking the law, Stewards can follow a particular club's agenda and eject people for breaking club and ground rules.

Closed-circuit Television which is now present in almost every Premier ground would be also very effective in detering violence, gathering intelligence and monitoring the efficacy of crowd control.

The Government can also step down and introduce something like the Football Licensing Authority which is responsible for awarding licences to premises that admit spectators to watch football matches. Though gov't-funded, it retains an independent function and has considerable powers. Not least, it has the capacity to close a stadium.

Corruption, violence, drug scandals, fake passports... this is the symptom of the once dubbed "best championship in the world". Fact is that the Italian teams which contended every UEFA cup final from 1988 until 1999 and won 4 CL in the same period have failed to make it past the QF in any European tournament for the last 2 yrs. Maybe it's just another "coincidence". I somehow doubt it.