Written by Matteo Ciaramella
We here at Serie All love every aspect of Italian football. The romantic stories and details hidden within the peninsula are mesmerizing, and it is an honor to be able to contribute to their spread throughout the globe. We try to present everything as beautifully as it is expressed in real life, while simultaneously being objective and unfiltered. This, unfortunately, forces us to report on everything, including the worst sides of the game.
We have already talked about the origins and the good that Italian ultras do. Now, it is time to uncover the darkest aspects of this subculture – the violence, the racism, the political extremism.
VIOLENCE
“About this time [AD 59] there was a serious fight between the inhabitants of two Roman settlements, Nuceria and Pompeii. It arose out of a trifling incident at a gladiatorial show….During an exchange of taunts—characteristic of these disorderly country towns—abuse led to stone-throwing, and then swords were drawn. The people of Pompeii, where the show was held, came off best. Many wounded and mutilated Nucerians were taken to the capital. Many bereavements, too, were suffered by parents and children.”
Tacitus, Annals (XIV.17)
If we want to dissect the violence that occurs in and around Italian stadiums, let us dive into Italian history. As the quote above shows, the Italic peninsula has, since ancient times, been afflicted by a phenomenon that we call campanilismo. I have previously used the term when discussing the Atalanta-Brescia rivalry, where I defined it as ‘a feeling of superiority and extreme devotion to your native land that goes hand in hand with a strong dislike for surrounding areas’. It is not outlandish to conclude that the Ancient Romans were the first ones to infiltrate campanilismo into the lands of Italian entertainment.
What followed was a campanilismo frenzy, as it became a big part of numerous sporting events throughout the peninsula. Medieval times saw a particular boom in this regard, especially in Calcio Fiorentino, an early and violent form of football mixed with rugby, played in the city of Florence between different neighborhoods. Il Palio di Siena – a famous horse race in the city of Siena – also pitches neighborhoods against each other, and is another great example. It is entirely possible that campanilismo in entertainment has taken a violent turn simply because of the fierce, brutal nature of these contests.
As football docked to our country’s ports in the late 19th century, people began shifting their attention to the sport, which grew at an exponential rate. With this, came the doom of region-specific sports – people had lost interest.
This rise culminated in the 1950s, as football had risen to an untouchable status. Games attracted tens of thousands of people and tickets sold out frequently. The average Italian could not get enough of football, and some fans became so attached to their teams that they decided to take their support to another level. With this came the birth of an indomitable beast: the Italian ultras.
The line between passion and violence is extremely thin, and ultras quickly rose as the main danger in stadiums. Roma, Lazio, and Torino were the first to boast organized supporter groups, while Sampdoria fans were the very first to officially call themselves ultras. As this movement grew throughout the 1950s and 1960s, it coincided with the booming Protests of 1968, which in Italy called for anti-establishment ideas and social reforms. University students were at the very core of everything, seeking more freedom and less suppression from government institutions, often recurring to violence and chaos. Seeing as ultras groups also shared these values (the two crowds often overlapped), they also frequently engaged in violence – fighting, rampage, and disorder were created in the direction of anyone who stood in their way.
The 1969 football revolution in the Southern city of Caserta is one of the main examples.
The following two decades saw little to no change, as turmoil increased, and civil unrest was a common sight. Political extremism took hold of Italy, and many ultras groups declared themselves communist, socialist, or neo fascist. This led to more intense altercations, once again between supporters themselves or against the police. The Italian 1970s and 1980s were marked by terrorism, mass rebellions, and bloodshed in the streets, in what is now known as gli anni di piombo (‘the lead years’, in reference to the lead bullets that were fired on a regular basis). In this heated context of brutality and violence, ultras did not hesitate to unleash their roughest side to the public, frequently engaging in authentic urban warfare before, during, and after games. Victims followed, some of them involved, while others completely innocent, for a total of 6 stadium-related deaths from 1970 to 1990.
The 1990s saw the beginning of the commercialization of football and its deep launch into the business world. Pay-per-view, scattered game times, and expensive tickets all contributed to a general feeling of hostility towards the establishment and the Italian government. In response, ultras amped up their violence and brutality during altercations with armed forces, leading to infamous tragedies. Policeman Filippo Raciti, killed during the 2007 Sicilian derby between Palermo and Catania, is one case that stands out among all others to this day.
Violence was, is, and always will be part of Italian ultras culture.
RACISM
With violence slowing down and taking a step back, another issue has spread its wings and captured the Italian stadium experience: racism. Italy may be a rich, developed, first-world country, but a conservative and traditionalist mentality is still largely widespread.
What is different is looked at with disdain, and non-white footballers are exactly that: different. Claims of racial abuse can be found in the hundreds, starting in the 1990s with players such as Ruud Gullit, Abedi Pele, and George Weah, to a mere month ago with Lecce’s Samuel Umtiti. The root of the problem is indifference from the average ultras fan, and the full belief that what they do does not fall under the umbrella term ‘racism’. Ignorance.
A telling episode is the Cagliari-Inter game on September 1st, 2019, during which Romelu Lukaku received racial abuse from opposing fans. Shockingly, it was Inter ultras themselves who defended their Cagliari counterparts, stating that “You have to understand that in all Italian stadiums people cheer for their teams but at the same time they are used to cheering against their opponents not out of racism but to help their teams” and “you have to understand that Italy is not like many other European countries where racism is a REAL problem”.
Italian ultras are naive, they think they are saints because they were brought up to believe that what they say and how they act is not racist. But the world has changed. Anything involving racism is thankfully no longer tolerated and accepted, but many ultras still cannot take a hard look in the mirror and admit the truth. That, in all honesty, may be exactly why this problem is so hard to tackle.
Ignorance and conservatism are key, but much of football racism in Italy also stems from something else.
POLITICAL EXTREMISM
Going back to the 1970s and 1980s, this is the time when ultras culture really grew to become what it is today, as the vast majority of organized supporters groups were born during these two decades of extreme political turmoil, chaos, and extremism.
Despite that, the centrist, catch-all Christian Democracy (Democrazia Cristiana in Italian, DC for short) was the largest and most influential party in the parliament. The ultras lifestyle was largely defined by anti-establishment ideals, and seeing as the establishment was liberal and centrist, ultras had no choice but to move to the extremes. Livorno, both as a city and as a club, is nationally famous for its strong ties to communism. They have their own isolated incidents, which will be talked about in another piece. Bologna, AC Milan, and Atalanta also share a history of very left-leaning ideals in the past, although this is not necessarily the case anymore. Jumping all the way to the right-wing, you can find clubs like Inter and Juventus, who still have many neo-fascist ‘clans’ among their most avid supporters. Hellas Verona is another big example, as they have declared themselves nazi-fascist on several different occasions. Tifos with swastikas and celtic crosses are a common sight at the Stadio Bentegodi in Verona, and several racist episodes that plague Serie A can be attributed to Hellas ultras. Many remember when the club had to withdraw from a transfer involving Dutch defender Maickel Ferrier (a black man) due to the aggressive fan response, which involved the displaying of a hung, black mannequin that resembled Ferrier himself during a game against Chievo Verona. They even went as far as exposing a writing that read: ‘The n***er was gifted to you. Make him clean the stadium’.
Ferrier never signed with the club.
Unfortunately, there is much more to Verona and their fanbase.
Verona’s current ultras boss is a man named Luca Castellini, a member of the Forza Nuova extreme right-wing, neo fascist party. Castellini rose to prominence when videos of him praising and idolizing Nazi figures such as Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess started to surface on the Internet, resulting in heavy criticism from the media.
Verona’s racist, homophobic, and xenophobic occurrences have always been defended by many ultras groups from other clubs. Among them, one truly stands out for the many condemnable actions and declarations over the years: S.S. Lazio.
Lazio’s right-wing ultras supporters are infamous across Italy, and in the past years they have expanded their reputation to the entire European continent. They recently made headlines due to heavy racist abuse towards Samuel Umtiti and Lameck Banda during their game vs Lecce on January 4th. It all got so bad that the referee was forced to stop the game, and threatened to suspend it. This episode, while disgusting in its own right, is but a blip on Lazio ultras’ resume, and the tales of racism and engagement with fascism are never-ending.
Before proceeding, it is important to note that, of course, not all Lazio fans are like this. This article refers to a small percentage of ultras, and more often than not, this small percentage can be found in the Irriducibili group of the Lazio supporters. Born in 1987, they first made a name for themselves in 1992, when Lazio bought Dutch defender Aaron Winter. A black-Jewish man, Winter was welcomed with a graffiti prompting him to ‘get out of here’, calling him ‘n***er-Jew’.
The Winter episode perfectly encapsulates the darkest sides of Lazio fandom: neo-fascism (which often goes hand-in-hand with antisemitism) and racism. Lilian Thuram, Bruno N’Gotty, and Usman Dabo are just some of the names that have suffered racist abuse at the hands of these fans.
During a 1998 Roman derby, some Lazio supporters held up a banner that read “Auschwitz is your country, the ovens are your homes”, while in 2013, they put up a picture of Anne Frank in a Roma shirt during a game against their cross-city rivals.
The worst part is that this is not only restricted to the fans. These evil ideals sometimes break through the stands and invade the pitch, reaching the players themselves. Paolo Di Canio, who grew up in Rome as a Lazio fan, has had two separate stints with the club. Many controversies have followed his name, including his use of the fascist salutes on several occasions and his praising of Mussolini in his autobiography. He has described himself as “fascist, but not a racist” and has a tattoo dedicated to Benito Mussolini on his right arm. Lastly, he was spotted attending the funeral of fascist terrorist Paolo Signorelli, involved in the infamous 1980 Bologna massacre.
Lazio fans have also been spotted praising figures such as Zeljko Raznatovic, a Serbian former mobster and paramilitary commander, convicted of war crimes and ethnic cleansing during the Yugoslav Wars.
Dark side ignored, racism pardoned, and extreme ideals overlooked – is no one seriously doing anything to stop this? Do ultras reign care-free, without worrying about their questionable actions? No, of course not. Clubs and the Italian government itself have introduced several measures to tackle these problems. Has that been enough? Clearly not, but that is for another article.
All you need to know for the time being is that the world of Italian ultras seems nice for outsiders looking in, but it hides some of the ugliest secrets in world football.
References
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/pompeii.html
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultras#Gli_anni_80
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1506262/Im-a-fascist-not-a-racist-says-Paolo-di-Canio.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4158591.stm
https://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2006/01_Gennaio/30/stadio.html
https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1990/03/04/perdonate-malgioglio.html
https://www.cestim.it/argomenti/09razzismo/09razzismo_ultras.htm
https://www.rivistacontrasti.it/ultras-ditalia-ep-iii/
https://ilmanifesto.it/ultras-e-curve-pericolose
https://lavialibera.it/it-schede-278-calcio_campionato_seriea_razzismo