Italian football faces again a difficult moment.

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Abete unsure of future
Monday 12 November, 2007
Italian Football Federation President Giancarlo Abete is refusing to rule out a suspension of the Serie A season or a ban on travelling fans.

Calcio is once again in crisis after the accidental shooting of a Lazio fan by a police officer led to violent protests from Ultras across the peninsula.

“It was a very sad day,” Abete told Radio Anch’io Sport. “We need to take stock of public opinion and have meeting between all the areas of the game.

“I don’t know what will happen and it seems risky to say anything now, but there is a problem that goes beyond a possible suspension of the championship.”

Aside from a possible hiatus in the Serie A campaign, Abete discussed whether or not away fans would be allowed to attend games.

“You can’t solve a problem just by banning people,” he stressed. “The answer isn’t to stop people watching football

“As far as travelling fans are concerned we are looking at public safety before we make any decisions

“I’m not ready to think that in 10 years time there will be a situation where you can only watch your team on TV.”

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Preziosi: Stop Serie A
Monday 12 November, 2007
Genoa President Enrico Preziosi has called for a long break in the Serie A season after the weekend’s turmoil.

After the chaotic events of the weekend, the Rossoblu patron doesn’t want to see the problem brushed under the carpet.

“You can’t pretend that nothing happened yesterday,” Preziosi told Radio Kiss Kiss. “This is the umpteenth demonstration that something isn’t working.

“I don’t agree with banning away fans. Why should we have to stop honest citizens who want to watch a game in another city?”

Preziosi’s solution to the current crisis is one of the more radical suggestions to be proposed over the last 24 hours.

“It’s not right to punish everyone just to stop a few. Rather than stop a single game or ban away fans, I’d be inclined to suspend the championship until something changes.

“Two or three months off would help show the world of football it’s true nature.

“I don’t believe in the culture of prohibition, rather I think we need to apply the rules that we already have.

“The laws are there to stop these events, but they are never fully applied. I think it’s time to call an end to this.”

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Monday 12 November, 2007
Blog: The show must go on
The weekend’s events have left the shadow of suspension lingering over the Serie A season. But Paul Watson doesn’t think a break would have the desired effect
They say that in times of tragedy people show their true colours and Sunday was a case in point. As news of Gabriele Sandri’s death spread across the peninsula, it was surely a time for the calcio community to rally round and mourn a terrible accident.

Instead, the scar on the face of Italian football presented itself. Maybe the FIGC should have postponed Atalanta’s game against Milan with tensions rising, but what took place in Bergamo was a damning indictment of Ultra culture.

A section of Orobici Ultras broke the safety glass and ensured that 20,000 real football fans didn’t see a game of football as the teams fled the pitch. These thugs, hiding behind their team colours, had no real knowledge of what had happened in Tuscany, but they decided to flex their muscles.

This set the tone for an evening of pitched battles in Rome as thugs pursued some strange notion of revenge against the police. Only in a warped reality could these misguided individuals believe that their actions were in Sandri’s name.

The aftermath of Sandri’s death merely demonstrated that those elements in every stadium who are merely waiting for an excuse to start trouble have become too powerful. While these dangerous factions can be found in any country, in Italy they seem to be invincible as they can claim the tag of ‘Ultras’.

Due to their scared position of being regarded as an integral part of the club rather than a dangerous rabble, they know that they can intimidate without fear of retribution and the will of a few hundred can take priority over the peace-loving masses.

Suspending the season wouldn’t punish the hooligans who turn up to stadiums hoping for a riot, it would punish the real fans. The thugs who broke the glass at the Stadio Atleti Azzurri d’Italia can satisfy their bloodlust in bars or at service stations. In fact, stopping the season would further inflate the bloated egos of the troublemakers. Action has to be taken, but it’s time for calcio to show a united front and prove that a small minority can’t bring the game to its knees.

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Head of the Italian Coaches’ Association Renzo Ulivieri has confirmed that there will be no Serie B or C fixtures this weekend.

After the death of Lazio fan Gabriele Sandri at the hands of a police officer and resultant violence throughout the peninsula, there have been suggestions that the season may be suspended.

There are no Serie A games scheduled for the coming weekend due to the Azzurri’s international test against Scotland, but there had been a Cadetti round and lower level fixtures.

“There was a unanimous agreement to not play on Sunday,” Ulivieri declared. “President Giancarlo Abete will explain all the details soon.”

The fate of this season’s Serie A is still up in the air as meetings are still taking place, but sports minister Giovanna Melandri is calling for a break.

“I expect the football world to make the right decision, such as halting play for several weeks,” she stressed.

“We need to take some time to stop the blind violence that doesn’t honour the memory of the young man who was killed.”

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Kaka: “In this way stars will leave Serie A”

Milan superstar Kaka has warned that Serie A’s best players will leave the Italian peninsula unless something is done to solve the football-related violence.
Sunday was another dark day in Italian football as Lazio fan was Gabriele Sandri was tragically shot dead by a policeman following a fight between Lazio and Juventus fans at a motorway service station near Arezzo.
This led to chaos and turmoil all around Italy, as the matches at Inter and Roma were postponed, while the game in Bergamo was abandoned after just eight minutes following violence in the crowd.
On Sunday night hundreds of Romans then took to the street destroying property, burning cars and vehicles and causing havoc throughout the Eternal City.
“Italian football is losing credibility,” Kaka told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “We need to take action immediately or the sport could die. “The world-class players want to play in great teams and in Italy there are some of the most prestigious clubs in the world. The scandals, the dead police officer and now the dead fan. Stop it now or the champions will leave one after another.”

(Goal.com

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I agree with kaka, italian football is a little too passionate. Take it down a notch guys.

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Italy govt: “This death ‘excuse’ for rampage”

Italy’s interior minister accused soccer hooligans on Tuesday of using the shooting of a fan by a policeman at the weekend as an excuse to go on the rampage, and promised to “cut out this violence at its roots”.
As the body of 26-year-old Gabriele Sandri, killed in an apparently accidental shooting after a brawl between fans, lay in wake in Rome, the country which won the World Cup last year wrestled with its inability to stem soccer violence.

Graffiti scrawled on walls in Rome promised more trouble, threatening “bloody” revenge against police for Sandri’s death.

Police are investigating what they called a “tragic mistake”. Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said fans had seized on the incident to resume a war on police which had been suspended after the death of a policeman in clashes in February.

“The violent reaction to Gabriele Sandri’s death shows they were looking for an opportunity — and found it — to raise again the banners they were forced to lower after the death of (Sicilian policeman Filippo) Raciti,” Amato said.

“This gave them a new reason for their vendetta and their hatred of the police, who had shot a fan, was bound to explode again,” said Amato, grilled by parliament on Sunday’s violence.

The Italian soccer federation has suspended this weekend’s second and third division programme after the latest violence. There were no top-flight domestic matches scheduled because Italy are playing Scotland in a European championship qualifier.

The measures were much less drastic than those taken in February when all matches were suspended pending tougher new security measures at stadiums.

Some politicians demanded tougher action.

“It is not enough to stop Serie B for one Sunday and Serie C, we should stop the top league, around which the whole soccer machinery revolves,” said Social Affairs Minister Paolo Ferrero.

RAMPAGING FANS
Hundreds of fans went on the rampage around Italy after the killing, which followed scuffles between fans of Rome’s Lazio and Turin’s Juventus at a motorway service station.

A Rome police barracks was pelted with rocks, cars were set on fire and matches were called off — in one case after fans tried to smash down a glass barrier keeping them from the pitch. Some 40 police were injured in Rome. Dozens of fans were arrested.

The confusing circumstances of the killing, with the police officer saying he accidentally shot across a busy motorway at a carload of fans driving away from the scene of the brawl, added to the impression of violence spiralling out of control.

February’s death of a policeman — which came six days after a man died at an amateur club game — led to the temporary suspension of league soccer and contributed to Italy missing out in the contest to host the Euro 2012 championship.

Clubs have now enforced much stricter measures at matches to control hooligans and officials say this has helped cut violence at stadiums by 80 percent from last season.

But while an opinion poll for La Repubblica newspaper showed one person in two favoured keeping fans out for the rest of the season, some soccer officials tried to distance the sport from violence sparked by an incident far away from any stadium.

UEFA President Michel Platini told one paper that “Sandri’s death has nothing to do with soccer” and asked if, had a pop fan been killed instead, all concerts would have been cancelled.

At Santa Rita hall in central Rome, many mourners filing past the coffin of Lazio fan Sandri wore scarves in his club’s blue and white but some also wore rival Roma’s red and yellow.

“Real soccer doesn’t exist anymore,” said local resident Maurizio D’Angelo at the wake. “Real soccer now is what we play on the streets with our friends to have a good time.”

(Reuters)


I fear that there might be some political interest in this, again please lets not mix football with politics, its two complely different things.