Watching the Inter v Atalanta game before christmas. As Atalanta fans threw flares onto the pitch after Inter scored the commentator said "and the Atalanta fans getting a little over excited there".
It's this acceptance and even tacit consent of shocking, dangerous, violent behaviour that has to stop.

It was sadly inevitable.

All those who stuck up for rioting fans in the past and and proudly boast of the police never daring to step into the curvas, hang your heads in shame.

Another nail in the coffin for Calcio as far as im concerned.

RIP Filippo Raciti

Latest news. Two weeks absolute postponement and two weeks ALL FIGC football behind closed doors. No spectators at any matches.

The problem with this kind of response is that it makes great headlines and heads will nod the world over, but it doesn't tackle the problem which is quite simply that the Ultras in Italy have too much power. It amazes me that a country that has nearly got on top of the mafia cannot obliterate a handful of Ultra trouble makers and crackhead followers. Once again the cry comes out of Italy to deal with the issue in the way the English have.

Personally, I think times have changed and the Italian state might benefit from adopting a counter terrorism stance. If this was happenining in UK right now Blair et al would have no hesitation in grouping this social disorder and murder alongside Islamic extremist action. The counter measures would be identical.

Personally, I would find it diffcult to be sympathetic to any ultra rounded up, harrassed, integrogated and genrally restricted in terms of accessing sport.

Anyone who uses football as a means to excersise their sick objectives of harming random individuals deserves to have their rights taken away

It will be interesting to see the outcome of the meetings to be held in Rome this w/end and if pressure from the bigger clubs will mean the ruling will not be as harsh as soon would expect.

Flying to Milan in the morning. Still going after the cancellations. Would be a waste of flights. Beer will have to do. Hopefully the suspension will be lifted before the derby in March

They have to do something now. To say their fans are mad and they will never solve it is ludicrous and a cop out.

Our problem, in my opinion, was worse than theirs, but in different ways; over here, the hooligans wanted to participate in hand-to-hand combat, whereas their hooligans just want to lob things at each other or launch cowardly stabbing attacks. We sorted our problems out with dawn raids, CCTV in grounds, all-ticket games, banning alcohol in grounds (although I've heard this isn't really a problem in Italy), banning orders and measures like these.

Yes, our game suffered initially, but due to the hard work of clubs through community projects carried out in conjunction with local authorities, our grounds are now among the safest in the world. OK, so we still suffer from hooliganism in this country, but it is a million miles from what it was like in the 70/80's. Slowly, the crowds came back and are now as healthy as any anywhere in the world.

If the Italian authorities want to sort their problems out, they must look at the way we have dealt with our problems and try and do the same. I know that the Ultras are the hooligans at a lot of clubs over there, but they are also responsible for a lot of the good things that happen at their clubs. Why can't they get involved in cleaning up their clubs? And, if they refuse to do so, why can't they be banned? After all, the police know exactly who they are, where they'll be and, most probably, where they live.

If Italy can't clean their act up, they should be suspended from all football, domestically and European, until they do. Or is it easy for UEFA/FIFA not to get involved, ignore it and brush it under the carpet as they don't export it, unlike the English?

Something else that must be done is the re-seating of stadia. As most of you will know seating in Italian stadia is usually just bench seats bolted onto steps instead of proper seats with backrests like in England. Although this may seem trivial, the result of this seating arrangement is that these supposed seated areas just act as vast terraces, utterly inpenetrable to police and stewards. These 'seats' should be ripped out, replaced with proper ones and the seating areas should be divided into smaller blocks, like in any modern stadium, with staircases at regular, twenty seat-wide, intervals. This would make the curvas far easier to access for police and stewards when there is a problem, trouble-makers are easier to identify and it is harder for the ultras to congregate en masse. As I've said, this may seem trivial but it would make a huge difference. I've supported Millwall all my life and have seen first hand how the behaviour of our fans has changed. Some of the nutters are still there but they know that it is all but impossible to cause trouble in the ground without being spotted and this is due to effective stewarding, CCTV and the layout of the stands/seats.

great point, Paul, and you can't tell me that Italian fans are worse than Millwall in their 'heyday'. I've seen some of the animals at Millwall, proper hardmen who'd go toe to toe at the drop of a hat. I've also experienced Italian fans first hand when wales played there, and hard men they're not.

The hooligan problem is one that can be sorted out, albeit not overnight and not easily, but it can be done with co-operation from all sides

Co-operation certainly and, perhaps most importantly, a will to change. But do the ultras have that will? I hope so but I fear not.

Possibly, they're quite happy to rule the terraces with their so-called rod of iron. But, they may have to change now

Ok, cards on the table. There was a time when I accepted the violence at Millwall and revelled in the reputation, although I was never a hooligan myself. But as I became disillusioned and dis-enchanted with professional football I started attending a lot of non-league football and it was the friendly, unique atmosphere in the lower reaches of non-league that made me realise what a total load of bullsh*t hooliganism is. When two teams play each other the only thing at stake is three points. Many Italian fans/ultras seem to have totally lost touch with reality.

I have been a Cardiff City fan for over 30 years and I can remember the dark days, not only of hooliganism, but also having a pretty s**t team! I have witnessed all that is bad in English football, the dark old days of mass brawls on the terraces, I've been in pubs when they've been ambushed and been on trains and coaches when they too have been ambushed and the windows put through. I've had a few cold journeys back home, I can tell you.

I used to watch a lot of London games, as I lived in Surrey, and I've seen the very worst hooliganism at close hand. As a Millwall fan, you'll know anout one game I attended: Millwall v Leeds 1985. Very bad, almost as bad as it gets. I saw a 'scarfer' get put in hospital just for asking the wrong people the way to the Den.

I take your point about non-league. I followed woking for a few years, as they were my local team. They had a great team in the early 90's when I was watching them. But now, I am a seasonm ticket holder at Cardiff and it is as safe to go to our ground as any other in the country. If ourselves and Millwall, two clubs with possibly the worst reputations in British football, can clean our act up, why cant't anyone else?

Because they don't get the negative attention Millwall and Cardiff get so they've no motivation to change. If the likes of Stoke, Bristol City, Burnley, Birmingham, Wolves, Forest got the criticism they all deserve for their hooligan problem then they'd soon start taking action. I consider Wolves and Forest to be possibly the two worst in the league but when have you ever seen stories about their violent fans in the press? Sorry, drifting from the original topic somewhat.

quote:

Originally posted by paul h.:
Because they don't get the negative attention Millwall and Cardiff get so they've no motivation to change. If the likes of Stoke, Bristol City, Burnley, Birmingham, Wolves, Forest got the criticism they all deserve for their hooligan problem then they'd soon start taking action. I consider Wolves and Forest to be possibly the two worst in the league but when have you ever seen stories about their violent fans in the press? Sorry, drifting from the original topic somewhat.

After banning our fans from their ground, Wolves fans were involved in the kind of disorder that Jez Moxey said only our fans indulged in up there.

Work that out

Aside from the sadness I feel for this poor policeman's family and the visual shock of full scale rioting what hits me about this whole thing is just how politically impotent and institutionally useless a country Italy is. I'm finding it difficult to understand what the logic was behind moving a lets face it not even potentially, more like certainly, violent and dangerous game to a Friday night?

I understand there was some big festival in Catania on the Saturday? Okay makes sense to shift a derby game but to a Friday evening?! Friday evening: people have been working all week, people want to get drunk/high, some people want to fight - put in the mixer a bitter derby game and surely anyone other than the incompotent, narcissic idiots that seem to permeate most Italian institutions would think that's not a good idea.

When the fixtures came up why didn't someone think nope that's going to be no good because there's a big festival that day we'll have to shift it round. In Italy? Pull the other one. Shifting fixtures round would no doubt result in some moron club owner bleating about it not being fair his club has had to change it's plans (the irresponsible "they're picking on us" crap that is endless in Italian football culture). Either this or it would be too difficult to do because the clubs don't own their grounds. On the Football Italia site I read earlier in the season there were two Scilian derbies in consecutive weeks, where's the sense, again?

Here Old Firm games kick off at 12:00, United v Liverpool games the same mind you here we have a police force that is effective and institutions and clubs that carry out action as opposed to the endless lip service in Italy. I really hope this changes for the better after all this.

Just curious, Football Italia Ed (or Mods), what was so bad about some previous posts - an article published in an Italian newspaper, and therefore in the public domain - that it warranted being deleted along with my partial translation of it?

I read your translation Ivano and I'm wondering exactly the same thing, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it at all. Maybe these editor folk have to delete anything from other media outlets? Don't get stressed about it just accept this place is, at times, like something out of 1984.

I was going to post something in reference to your translation as well about how I agree with the article that Italian clubs should now all be banned from European competition. I just think the league and clubs need to be shunned for a significant time just like English ones were in the 1980s until they make real changes to the whole game

Also, most Serie A & B games seem to be totally under policed. When Millwall played West Ham in 2003, at The Den for the first time in 10 years, there was one copper for every 14 fans! The whole culture of Calcio has to change, from the poorly designed grounds to the impotent authorities to the influence of the ultras to the life & death seriousness in which football is followed. Don't tell me it's passion-it's utterly uneccessary.

quote:

Originally posted by Football Italia Ed:
Raciti murder 'was revenge'

What's the world coming to?

quote:

Originally posted by paul h.:
Also, most Serie A & B games seem to be totally under policed. When Millwall played West Ham in 2003, at The Den for the first time in 10 years, there was one copper for every 14 fans! The whole culture of Calcio has to change, from the poorly designed grounds to the impotent authorities to the influence of the ultras to the life & death seriousness in which football is followed. Don't tell me it's passion-it's utterly uneccessary.

When we played Tottenham in the cup a couple of weeks ago, there were hundreds of police.

Normal THFC police for a standard game: 300; A London derby or Man United game: 400; on duty at the Cardiff cup replay: 700.

Now, if Italian police adopted the same attitude for high-profile games and actually had some teeth about them, things may be different