quote:

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

They are reknowned for not being heavy handed are the old Italian police.

Latest on the news here is that there will be no football for two weeks then all games behind closed doors except at those stadiums which reach the new regulations - only Rome, Milan and Turin... As far as im concerned this only favours the Ultras as they will still go to the games as they always do when the matches are played behind closed doors. As usal us innocent people lose out. If they do decide that all games are behind closed doors do we get our money back???!!!

They need to start realising that the majority of the time the Ultras are there to fight the police, not the away fans. Once they realise that then maybe they can start dealing with the problem. The laws here are already in place they are just not enforced. The Ultras control the fans and have the power to stop fighting...not he police.

quote:

Originally posted by Shaker Beads:
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

Oh, I'm not worried about stuff getting deleted and I didn't really spend much time at all on the "translation".

Perhaps we should all change our nicks to "Jade Goody", and that way, in Channel 4's eyes, we can say whatever we want...?

quote:

Originally posted by Roma Girl:
As far as im concerned this only favours the Ultras as they will still go to the games as they always do when the matches are played behind closed doors. As usal us innocent people lose out.

How will they get in if the games are behind closed doors?

quote:

Originally posted by AndyCardiff:

quote:

Originally posted by Roma Girl:
As far as im concerned this only favours the Ultras as they will still go to the games as they always do when the matches are played behind closed doors. As usal us innocent people lose out.

How will they get in if the games are behind closed doors?

I suspect it with would be collusion from the clubs;i suspect that with Romagirls post we can identify the crux of the problem with the ultras.Anyone remember the Rome derby a couple of years ago that was abandoned at the insistence of "fans spokesmen" on the pitch?Before Italy deals with the complicity of clubs with ultras they will never get a grip on this problem

Games behind close doors won't solve any problems, violence just doesn't disappear.

Can the Italian clubs be kicked out of European competition for this? I realise Uefa threw Feyenoord out of the Uefa Cup after crowd trouble but that was in their own stadium, would it be fair to Inter, Milan & Roma to throw them out the UCL for something that happened in Sicily?

Italy really, really has to drive the Ultras out of the game. If you want to move forward, you have to get rid of them. They are ruining the game and they're like the spoilt child who will take his ball home if things aren't going his way. There are no easy solutions to problems like this, but these cowards and bullies have to ge driven out. I personally think that people may well have had enough of them and it's time for the majority to speak out

Indeed. Too often, in many walks of life, the vocal minority oppresses the silent majority. They claim to love their respective clubs but more often than not their actions are motivated purely by self-interest to the detriment of the clubs.

Paul, do you remember the first game of the 1999-2000 season when your team came down here?

UEFA could, I suspect, bar Italian entry into Europe, probably on the grounds that unless they had a watertight guarantee from the clubs that visiting fans would be safe (which no club could provide) then no European football.

The problem, of course, would be the TV companies, who would be less than impressed, I assume, if (say) Inter were replaced with, say, Narva Trans of Estonia.

The answer's going to have to come from legislators, and the anti-Mafia legislation may provide a suitable model. More drastic, but perhaps helpful would be proscribing the ultras in the same manner that the Red Brigades were treated in the 70s and 80s. That could make a major difference (even professing membership of the Ultras in public could lead to imprisonment for membership of a banned organisation).

The Italian FA cannot solve this by itself, and given the reports here of just how pernicious the ultras can be, it seems like a hefty dose of judicial intervention is required to sort things out.

As for the Catania Ultras, they

Yes, what about the Catania Ultras, I wonder? (meant to delete that bit).

This has really been a testing few months. Ultras simply have been allowed to become too influential at some clubs. I don't feel unsafe or threatened when I watch Juventus, but we're one of the only stadiums that implement Pisanu. That said, who's to say it wouldn't just lead to fighting being arranged or planned outside the grounds? That could arguably be even more dangerous - the main fighting in Catania was outside the stadium. The Olimpico in Rome implements Pisanu, yet both clubs using that stadium have afforded too much power to their ultras, resulting in trouble occuring from time to time. I was at a match in the San Siro in December where Milan fans threw flares on the pitch on 2 separate occasions, leading to threats that the match would be called off - which can be precisely the reason ultras do it if they're aggrieved at certain politics within the club.

...and how do they get flares into the stadium? My bag was checked every time I've gone to a match, so I suspect it's prearranged, possibly with someone working within the club or stadium smuggling them in.

How do you eradicate the ultras at certain clubs?

Outlaw Ultras, pick out the ringleaders, ban them, enforce a strict 'No Ultras' rule at clubs and anyone belonging to these groups will be arrested and/or imprisoned

There was a good article in The Times today by Gabriele Marcotti (which I'd post a link to except the website is playing up) which stated that the violence was orchestrated outside the ground by Ultras who had been banned - so merely banning them, as Adam has said, will only move the problem to outside the stadiums. The "fans" concerned were supposed to report to Police Stations before the match, but left en-masse. Short of locking them up, what can the authorities do in such cases?

Story CF mentioned

The Times has redesigned its webpage, but it appears that they've not sorted out some of the glitches...


If the Italian government does nothing, or is half-hearted, then future riots of this sort will eventually end with the use of lethal force to disperse the rioters. I don't mean the odd one shot dead (like the PSG fan in France), but deployment of marksmen tasked with shooting those who are clearly insitgating the violence.

Although times have changed (mercifully), a riot of similar intensity in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s would have been such that shooting those throwing the fireworks would have been permissible under the rules of engagement.

I go to every home match and im rarely searched.. girls take the bombs etc in...or they leave them at the stadium during the week. Stadiums are council owned and left empty without security during the week.

quote:

Originally posted by AndyCardiff:
Paul, do you remember the first game of the 1999-2000 season when your team came down here?

Was that when a helicopter had to land in the middle of a park to stop the fans fighting each other!?

I think we have got to be cautious of holding the English experience up as the paragon of good politics and sensible regulation. The fan and hooligan base are different in both countries.

From what I remember Ecstasy and the Rave culture done as much to eradicate Saturday afternoon violence as state intervention. Firms were turning up to matches loved up from the night before as opposed to being hung over with the sole intent of getting beered up again and having a ruck.

But violence in UK society exists. Although not expressed at as much at football matches anymore it has leaked onto the high street. The UK is without doubt the most violent country to go out and socialise at night. Look at our city centres on a typical Friday and Sauturday night . . absolute carnage. I can't remember feeling threatened at all in Rome, Milan or Florence out at night.

The lad Andy from Cardiff who tried to paint a jocular iumage of the typical Brit hooligan standing toe to toe exchanging fists with his adversary is sadly talking nonsense. Witness for eaxample the cult of stanley knife slashing etc. . . . no balls there. Hide the blade, approach target slash out viciously, and retreat.

Sensible measures need to be put in place in Italy; restructuring of the seating in the stadia, ground ownership by clubs, responsible stewarding and proactive police measures and stringent court sentences.

But let's not get to carried away with assumptions that we have got it all worked out in this country.

Rave culture eradicating hooliganism is a myth put about by the likes of Tony Wilson, Millwall were at their most violent in the late eighties and early nineties. I don't think Andy or myself has suggested that hooliganism has gone away in England, in one of my earlier posts I said the nutters are still there, but it is a world away from how it was and when it does arise we are far more effective in dealing with it. Violence has seen a marked decline at the Den and believe me it's got nothing to do with ecstasy.

I don't think english fans can say much considering their history.

Worst fans I have witnessed anywhere and I go to Italy regularly for games.