Hi all,

Can anyone shed some light on the recent events at the Roma v Livorno game on Sunday, the Roma fans unvailed nazi flags etc. This is not the first time it has happened to Livorno, is there something about Rome supporters or Livorno:?:

Here is a short piece in regards to the situation and Roma attempting to distance itself from these fans.....


AS Roma risk a stadium ban after their fans held up banners with neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic slogans during a 3-0 win over Livorno in Serie A at the weekend.

The club immediately sought to distance itself from its fans.


'I'm absolutely against anyone who tries to bring politics into the stadiums,' Roma coach Luciano Spalletti was quoted as saying in Corriere dello Sport on Monday. 'It should remain outside.'

The mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, reflected the coach's words and added: 'Rome is the city of the deportation of the Jews, the city of the Fosse Ardeatine (the site where German soldiers killed Jews during the Second World War). We cannot tolerate behaviour of this kind.'

Roma narrowly avoided a stadium ban earlier this season after a bottle hit the referee at the end of the derby with Lazio.

Among the people calling for the club to be punished was the head of the city's Jewish community, Vittorio Pavoncello.

'We will ask for the intervention of the sporting authorities,' he said.

The incident will cause more damage to Italian football's tarnished public image.

Lazio's Paolo Di Canio has received 10,000 euro fines and one-match bans twice in the last month for making raised-arm fascist salutes during Serie A games.

That isn't politics, it's blatant racism!

Roma received a one match ban because of it. I am very disapointed. I love Roma but these actions are the actions of animals. To take politics out of football in Italy is going to be a tough task.
To take racism out will be even harder.

it seems more of a problem now in other countries than it is in Britain . I also think Paolo Di Canio would have received more than a one game ban here for that nazi type salute .

To be honest Paulo should get a season long ban for it. As we have seen in the past all the FA's across Europe, UEFA & FIFA have to offer is lip service, a la the Spainish Manager and Spain's proformance against England.

Di Canio explained that it wasn't a nazi salute. So you can't ban him for a celebration that was maybe misunderstood.

Hes still a [beep!], he must have known how it would have been interpreted.

This type of behaviour by the Roma fans is disgraceful, the punishment should be far worse in my opinion.

Di Canio believed it was a Roman salute that was traditional to Rome. I can't see nothing wrong with that. Footballers are human beings, people with individual beliefs, different cultures and should be allowed to express themselves.

Atheists don't complain when a player blesses himself after scoring a goal because they think it's wrong. If Robbie Fowler believes sniffing coke from a football pitch line marking is funny, then thats up to him. But thats a bad example to young people watching. Just is diving, cheating, and cursing like you know no other form of language - But Rooney isn't the brightest.

In my humble opinion your missing point J. To suggest that Di Canio’s excuse is a valid one, is naïve. The relationship between Lazio and right wing extremists is bordering on the incestuous. They have had countless run-ins with authorities regarding racial abuse and extreme political actions. Paulo’s “Roman Salute” has more modern connotations.

To compare bad behavior like that of Robbie and Eric Cantona with the actions of Di Canio in my opinion is not wise. The latter and its likes are extreme political opinions whose fundamental outlook is the oppression of “inferior” sections of society to enable the superiority of another. This was also the belief of the Roman Emipre which Paulo sympathizes with and more modern colonists such as France, Britain and Portugal. To say that we are individuals and have the right to express ourselves in what ever way we chose is noble, but in this case not acceptable.