Fan Violence Runs Deep in Italian Society

Nov. 28, 2007 — -- In soccer-mad Italy, home to the World Cup champions -- a country whose former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, named his political party "Forza Italia" after a fan chant -- the domestic game is in a downward spiral as confounding as it is real.

For proof, you need look no further than the stadiums themselves. Once teeming with colorful patrons, they have been transformed into near-barren fortresses.

Those who still choose to visit are greeted by the architecture of obstruction -- concrete barriers and tall fences meant to separate potentially riotous fans from the field.

But the result often differs from the desired effect. The line between being protected and feeling caged in is thin. And in this new era of Italian soccer, when tensions rise, it has too often been the culture of violence that prevails.

With this in mind, Atalanta club officials in Bergamo, Italy, were probably wise to abandon their team's match against European champions AC Milan on Nov. 11.

The sides played just seven minutes that Sunday afternoon before the plexiglass border built to separate players from the masses began to waver against the crush of a surging mob.

The attempted field invasion was the crowd's crude response to the murder of a 26-year-old fan from Rome, who was shot and killed by a policeman in Tuscany just hours earlier. The officer was responding to an early morning scuffle between rival fan groups at a highway rest stop.

The death of Gabriele Sandri was another blow to the national sports scene, its psyche already battered by decades of corruption and a slew of recent scandals.

The World Cup summer of 2006 was tainted by Italian league match-fixing trials. Six months later, in February of this year, a policeman was killed before a match in Sicily. His death prompted authorities to postpone the week's matches and bar supporters from stadiums that didn't meet common safety standards.

But action was less swift on Nov. 11, in the wake of the Sandri death, when all but two games commenced as scheduled. The third, in Bergamo, saw the reigning champions of Europe run off the field under the threat of fan violence.

In the capital, where the AS Roma match was postponed -- though only at the last moment -- rioters armed with burning flares took over the streets near the Stadio Olympico. They would go on to deface the national Olympic headquarters before being subdued with tear gas and baton sticks.

By day's end, Italian sporting authorities had put the season on an indefinite and nervy hiatus. It was the second time in less than a year that a day of rage had made it necessary to shut down the national game. The sports ministry promised the suspension of games would last for at least "several weeks."