Subversion lingers behind Italian football hooliganism

Meanwhile experts, commentators and politicians seem to be fumbling for a solution to a problem that has caused three deaths this year, reaching a tally of 18 football-related victims since a fan was killed in a stadium by a stray bullet in 1963.

 The death Sunday of Gabriele Sandri, a Lazio fan on his way to a Serie A game in Milan, appears also to be a fatality caused by the clumsy reaction of a policeman arriving at a fight among fans at a motorway rest station.

 What followed was yet another black Sunday for Italian football, with hooligans interrupting games in Bergamo and Taranto, and others assaulting police headquarters and causing turmoil in Milan and Rome.

 The web forum "Vivereultras," which gathers die-hard fans from all clubs, gave its interpretation for the riots, calling Sandri's death "cold-blood murder" and explaining that "the anger of the ultras erupted because a friend was killed by the negligence of an agent."

   Bergamo chief ultra Francesco Palafreni, 52, told police that "the (Atalanta-AC Milan) game had not to be played because the message was being conveyed that if a fan kills a policeman the league stops, (but) if the contrary happens, a 10-minute delay is enough."

   His infelicitous statement compared the violent death in February of policeman Filippo Raciti in clashes outside the Catania stadium with the unfortunate killing of the fan Sunday, and was echoed by hundreds of hooligans chanting slogans in other stadiums.

 Speaking Tuesday at the chamber of deputies, Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said that the fan "wouldn't be dead if a policeman had not fired, which is unforgivable, but he wouldn't be dead also if fans of different clubs meeting at a rest station had coffee together rather than fight."

   As with past tragic football weekends, the ministry is attempting to counter fan violence by tightening its anti-hooligans laws.

 Examples from foreign countries such as Germany or England, where hooliganism has been more successfully countered, are being considered.

 Sports Minister Giovanna Melandri said she was pleased that the Italian football federation (FIGC) Monday adopted rules to improve the monitoring of access to stadiums and reward the sportsmanship of fans while looking to establish a dialogue with them.

 In Italy, however, the problem might be bigger and with roots that go beyond football.

 Police studies quoted by la Repubblica set at about 80,000 the number of fans monitored or investigated for violent episodes.

 About a quarter of them, though, consist of smaller groups who appear not only to direct their violence mainly against the police, but also target sports institutions and the rich television networks.

 Further evidence came from Sunday riots in Rome and Milan, where hooligans attacked the police headquarters and the seat of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), and beat up a cameraman from Sky TV, something which had already happened in Turin in September.

 Beside the larger group of violence-prone fans, police believe that the real danger comes from about 60 right-leaning groups totalling some 15,000 fans, plus 5,000 organised in left-wing groups.

 "They are few enough to let football people say that these people are a minority who cannot kill the best show in the world," la Repubblica quoted a police official as saying.

 "But they are a lot from our point of view, considering the imitation mechanisms and the chain reactions that just 100 of these subjects can trigger inside or outside a stadium."

   A step in the directions indicated by the police seemed to come Monday from Rome prosecutors, who said they would charge the hooligans of committing terrorist acts.

 It is an unprecedented charge for hooligans, which should lead to harsher sentences than the ban from stadiums handed down so far.By Alberto Cagliano, dpa