Slightly Off Topic.... Or is it??
For with all these European Civilization buffs around, there must be at least one or two soccer fans <g>
Tonight, there'll be a big soccer match between France's Olympique de Marseilles and Italy's Lazio Roma. It'll likely be broadcasted live on a couple of TV networks.... Dark side: every time a black player will catch the ball, half the stadium will just hoot Hoo Hoo Hoo!, mimicking a herd of chimps.
Yahoo! News Sport
Thursday February 3, [2000] 7:00 PM
Football-Italy steps up fight against racist banners
By Gideon Long
ROME (Reuters) - Italian soccer matches are to be suspended in future for up to 45 minutes if racist or offensive banners are displayed at stadiums.
Matches will then be scrapped if the banners are not removed within that time and teams whose fans are to blame will be penalised with automatic 2-0 defeats, soccer bosses said on Thursday.
"This is a very serious public order problem which soccer governing bodies, as always, are doing their utmost to counter," Italian Football Federation (FIGC) president Luciano Nizzola told a news conference.
The federation was responding to an Interior Ministry decree ordering the suspension of matches for as long as was necessary to remove offensive banners from the crowd.
The unprecedented move by the government came two days after Lazio fans held aloft a banner paying tribute to assassinated Serb warlord Arkan and a portrait of former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini at a match against Bari last Sunday.
The banners triggered widespread outrage but mixed opinions on how to deal with the problem.
Some, like AS Roma President Francesco Sensi, called for matches to be scrapped. Others, including Italy coach Dino Zoff, said that would only give racists on Italy's soccer terraces the publicity they craved.
The FIGC met on Thursday to discuss the practicalities of enforcing the decree. It stressed that any decision to halt a match would lie with an Interior Ministry official at the stadium rather than the match referee.
"Whenever the Interior Ministry official responsible for public order at each stadium considers that one or more of the banners displayed by fans constitutes an incitement or an apology for violence or racial discrimination...(he or she) will ask the referee to delay the start of the match or halt a match which is already in progress," the FIGC said in a statement.
"Forty-five minutes after the start of the suspension or after the scheduled kick-off the referee will call off the match (if the banners have not been removed)."
DECREE COULD BACKFIRE
Critics of the government decree say it could cause more problems than it solves.
Police could be drawn into clashes with fans when they try to confiscate banners and thousands of supporters, packed together in the stands, could become restless if they are made to wait for their weekly diet of football.
In addition, match suspensions would wreak havoc with all-important television schedules and disrupt the final fixtures of the season when the Football League synchronises kick-off times to deny teams an advantage over their rivals.
"We cannot allow ourselves to speculate on those kinds of problems," Nizzola said. "We are faced with a decree from the Interior Ministry. We cannot do anything but adopt measures to enforce the decree and then deal with the consequences as and when they arise."
Right-wing extremists often hold aloft flags bearing swastikas and neo-Nazi celtic crosses at Italian matches.
Lazio, who counted Mussolini among its shareholders in the 1930s, have gained a reputation for extremist fans.
At a match against city rivals AS Roma in 1998, Lazio fans held aloft a huge banner attacking the city's Jewish population, traditionally from Roma supporting districts.
"Auschwitz is your country, the gas chambers are your homes," it read.
google.com
I bet you tifoso Yaacov is not a Lazio supporter! LOL! Or maybe he'll just stick by his fellow hooligans and throw peanuts at his TV.... dunno....
Here's more good material:
jpr.org.uk
Excerpt:
Racist attitudes were also manifested by militant football fans who hurled abuse at black players on opposing teams and used racist insults against fans from opposing teams in the stadiums. Sometimes these episodes erupted into violence, which often was incited by groups of skinheads. In April, two skinheads dressed in the hooded costumes of the Ku Klux Klan hoisted a black puppet figure bearing the words "Negro go away" against a member of the Verona football team, a black player from the Netherlands. The two were arrested on charges of racist violence.
Roma face discrimination, including difficulty in finding places to stay. The city of Rome opened three camps and was expected to open others. The Roma population around Rome is between 5,000 and 6,500.
Several groups of fundamentalist Catholics in the Veneto region carried out leaflet campaigns against Muslim immigration into Italy and against what they considered to be an excessive openness towards immigrants on the part of the official Catholic organizations, which they accused of being communist. [...]
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The U.S. has its NBA pom-pom girls and Europe's got its soccer hoo-hoo hoodlums.... |
