“Sorry, but now it seems to us completely absurd to write about football,” reads the main page of the official site of the Catania club.
The riots during and after the end of the Sicilian derby between Catania and Palermo, which led to the tragic death of a policeman, continued the violence in football. On the weekend preceding the events in Sicily, the representative of the amateur club Sammartinese was killed, who tried to stop the fight between the rival fans and the players. On the same day, the Livorno fan needed 20 stitches after the Fiorentina fans attacked him, and the Bergamo police chased hundreds of raging Atalanta ultras. In a series D match, a drum was thrown from the rostrum into the side referee.
After the first incidents, Italian Football Federation President Luca Pankalli tried to stop the growing panic, assuring everyone that the country was in a state of increased vigilance. Literally immediately after this statement, a police officer Filippo Rachiti was killed in Catania. It happened on Friday late in the evening. Football hooliganism is traditionally referred to as the “English disease”, but it seems to me that the United Kingdom has long been on the right track to tackle such problems. England has taken effective and widespread measures to make the Premier League stadiums safe.
A few years ago, I visited the Catania home arena of Stadio Massimino to watch a game against Fiorentina, and was struck by the contrast with the comfortable and safe English stadiums. The high barriers of stands and standing places, which in Britain have already become an anachronism, were striking. Fireworks and smoke bombs, which fans secretly carried to the stadium, caused great concern - this required the presence of a local fire brigade. Can you imagine this at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge? During the game, fans lit a fire in the stands and threw a field of fires and flag poles. This behavior seems to be a normal practice for Catania. When the next day I read a report on this match in the Gazzetta dello Sport and did not even find a mention of the riots, I strengthened my opinion that this behavior of fans is in the order of things.
In the 70s and 80s, England understood from its own experience that there should be no hasty decisions in the fight against football hooliganism. However, the lack of basic security principles, such as what I observed in Catania, requires urgent action by the Italian authorities and relevant services. It is necessary to conduct a thorough search in the aisles of the stadium and clearly establish a list of items prohibited for carrying. The largest investments should be made in the old and dilapidated stadiums of the country. After the Hillsborough disaster, Taylor’s report raised issues such as providing stadiums with only seats, installing cable television, removing barriers, an efficient ticketing system, using stewards and police.
Italian football has not yet recovered from a summer corruption scandal affecting top clubs, including Juventus and Milan, when it was suddenly overshadowed by the problem of violence in the stands. The sad events of recent weeks coincided with the filing of an application from Italy for the European Championship 2012. The word "crisis" can hardly fully describe the situation in the form of sports, in which Italy became the world champion six months ago. Now the safety issue in Italian football should be addressed by Prime Minister Romano Prodi. He has to carry out large-scale transformations to help football and the millions of Italians who love this game so much.
Translation by Eugene KLEPOV