General Football 2012-13: Page 56 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

General Football 2012-13

Xcdude24

I'm not saying that Lazio's ultras are angels- far from it. I just feel like when English supporters are in rome it's usually Roma supporters.

Qwiss

How does Italy get away with it? Knife attacks, scooters off top tiers, Ultras invading pitches and threatening players, bribing refs, fixing matches, etc Its the most corrupt and one of the most violent leagues in the world yet Fifa and Uefa do nothing about it. Just imagine the shit storm if it was English clubs where all that was going on.

Tony Montana

Exactly it's ridiculous.

Klaus

Captain wrote:
It's about time some of these clubs were made to take responsibility for their fans outside of the stadium. Forget closed door games and such nonsense and just kick them out of the competition.

Aye. It's not like this is a new phenomenon. It'll continue to happen for the simple reason that this isn't people you reason with. They turned their backs on dialogue a long time ago.

FEBravo wrote:
Do you actually have any evidence to back this claim up? Lazio ultras are well-known for being some of the worse in Italy, and they also routinely use fascist and racist banners and symbols. Roma ultras are no angels either, and most teams in Italy have these idiots looking for an occasion to engage in gratuitous violence. I also have not seen anything suggesting it was Roma ultras.

Yeah, I don't get it either. Not that Roma haven't got their fair share of radicals still stuck in the dark ages but Lazio really takes the biscuit. Is there any other football club in the world with ultras who deal in such extremes? We're talking borderline neo-nazis with close political ties to the extreme right who wish they were still living in the good old days of the Mussolini regime. They canonise a cunt of a man like Di Canio because he greets them with a fascist salute. They have the nerve to publicly mock Daniele De Rossi days after his father-in-law has been found with three mob bullets in the back of his skull. They decorate entire stands with banners containing swastika symbols and eagles clutching fasces, and they're allowed to do it. Stabbings, assaults and even shootings are all part of their reality. It's how they define themselves. The irony in the fact that Lazio historically was the one Roman club which made a stance against the fascists is surely lost on them.

Clubs with fans like that have no business being involved in European football. It'll never be enough to just force them to play in an empty stadium or even away from home. They're run by men who are all too happy to turn football into politics, and the kind of conservative Italian politics they favour comes with a baggage full of violence, religious superstition, conspiracy theories and an alarming disregard for basic human rights. Basically, it's Berlusconi's idea of an utopia.

Burnwinter

To play fascist's advocate for a moment: these guys are violent thugs for whom being in a 'firm' is a weekend hobby that has little do with football beyond the convenient tribal organising principle.

Would docking points, relegation or ejection of their team from the competition really deter the hard core?

Klaus

The thing is that they're deeply rooted in the club for a reason. Ask yourself this: why are Lazio being led by a man like Claudio Lotito who was disgraced in the aftermath of the Calciopoli scandal and subsequently got suspended for nearly three years, only to then receive another lengthy ban (though later reduced) as soon as he got back for having third party ownership over some of the players he brought to the club? Because they're sensitive about their image?

There's a difference between having radical supporters and actually supporting the radical supporters. Lazio blurred that line a long time ago. They're doing nothing to get rid of these people, and as such they're putting rivaling fans in harm's way. Docking points and throwing the club out of Europe won't deter the core of radical supporters but it might encourage the club to actually deal with the problem. And even if they don't, at least you've somewhat decreased the likelihood of stabbing incidents taking place during European cup games.

Burnwinter

(Hmm. Some kind of weird semi-edited double post there - must've fucked up.)

In Greece at the moment you've got Golden Dawn types smashing up immigrants' shops and market stalls, aided and condoned by the police force. An essentially similar fascist, nationalist urge in action.

It's a bit of an anti-humanist view but some articles I've read suggest that economic parameters lead to an increase in the population of young men sufficiently disaffected to carry out this sort of violence. Economic downturn equals fascist upturn.

I don't say don't expel Lazio, just I doubt it does much about the underlying problem.

Klaus

Well, you have to start somewhere.

Speaking of Greece, the big clubs in the Athens area have indeed had similar troubles with ultras for a long time. The current outbursts are basically the same radical element magnified through a nation in complete turmoil. There are similar alignments in Spain too - particularly in the Madrid area. Partly because Franco always favoured a particular club there heavily, but Atletico Madrid are pretty much the same. Frente Atletico are widely known as the worst of the lot. Unsurprisingly they've been growing even stronger in the light of recent economical difficulties. It might be a bit of an anti-humanist view but it's also fairly accurate. Just look at the raise of the ultras in Italy during the 70s and 80s. Or the open racism in Moscow and St Petersburg. There's definitely a connection.

Burnwinter

Yeah.

I guess my view is that if the enlightened policy makers of Europe want to quell fascism effectively, they should support structural reform of the eurozone, and give up on the failed austerity measures tied to the bailouts of the PIGS countries.

Within that context there should still be harsh sanctions on clubs for fan violence, by all means.

Klaus

I completely agree that the root cause is political but as far as the world of football goes there's a limit to how many aspects of society you have an influence on. I wouldn't underestimate the consequences of some of these sanctions though. When football becomes so deeply rooted in daily life you'll feel the sting. The unvoiced concern that these people might find another forum to deal with their aggressions is not a valid argument for me. I know that's not what you've been saying at all but I've seen that view expressed in sports columns a few times now. Here's an idea: What if everyone took a bit of responsibility for their share of the problem? It's a naively simple solution but it sounds a lot better than no one doing anything at all.

Biggus

Thing is Burnsy it's too simple to say poverty= violence, a well travelled person like yourself knows that some of the poorest people can be the most friendly.
EG Ireland has traditionally suffered from poverty but has never had a football hooligan problem- It's simply not in their culture to go to other countries and wreak havoc, and I'm sure there are other countries who must be similar.
A thug is a thug is a thug whether they're poor or wealthy- In fact many thugs who travel to foreign away games have the free time and money to indulge their hideous pastime.

Burnwinter

I accept your defence of Ireland, but feel bound to point out that the word "hooligan" is a corruption of Houlihan 😉

A thug is a thug is a thug whether they're poor or wealthy

Sure, but the socioeconomic context plays a part. No one has more time, more energy and less to do with then than an unemployed, disaffected young man.

Anyway, Klaus is right, agree completely with him in this instance.

Biggus

Indeed along with the term "Paddy whack" from the childrens rhyme/football chant, we Irish are often drunken and violent but strangely not at football games.

y va marquer

That tendancy towards violence was channeled in other directions here?
We have a history of rebellion and terrorism - our disaffected male youth generally decided to become volunteers for the "cause"?
Take the cause away and I reckon it's only a matter of time before the marginslised find another outlet.

My feeling is that it's only our social welfare system, which is costing 20 billion a year to finance (in a country with a population of 4.5 million), that is keeping all hell from breaking loose.
The standard jobseekers allowance is €188 per week, a payment which is made longterm and indefinitely.
Add on rent assistance, medical cards, fuel allowances, children's allowances etc and people get by.
I'm not saying it's a picnic for them, or that there aren't extremes of poverty, but generally it's relative, often hidden and sometimes it's associated with a family history of addiction

The troika might soon force a situation where that is no longer the case - my guess is that it would only be then that we'd begin to experience to some degree what they're experiencing in other PIG nations.

FEBravo

Some interesting developments in the Italian press today.
Seems there may have been a anti-semitic element given Tottenham's historic links with the Jewish community. Some witnesses says they heard the attackers yell "Jews" during the assault, and the thinking now was that the group was a mix of various right-wing factions, including Lazio ultras, whose links to right-wing extremism (well explained by Klaus above) are well known. The attackers did not have, it seems, any Lazio distinctive signs, although most people seem sure that they were involved to some extent. Of course, Lotito claims that no Lazio fans were involved (surprise).

Google translate article for those interested

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.repubblica.it%2Fcronaca%2F2012%2F11%2F22%2Fnews%2Flotito_i_tifosi_della_lazio_non_c_entrano-47189513%2F%3Fref%3DHREC1-3

y va marquer

Would have been more fitting.

In the real one he's got some kind of weird, unrecognizable, serene almost benevolent mystic look going on.

Biggus

😆 He looks like Dubya, the successful military Imperator - Mission accomplished!

y va marquer wrote:
That tendancy towards violence was channeled in other directions here?
We have a history of rebellion and terrorism - our disaffected male youth generally decided to become volunteers for the "cause"?
Take the cause away and I reckon it's only a matter of time before the marginslised find another outlet.

My feeling is that it's only our social welfare system, which is costing 20 billion a year to finance (in a country with a population of 4.5 million), that is keeping all hell from breaking loose.
The standard jobseekers allowance is €188 per week, a payment which is made longterm and indefinitely.
Add on rent assistance, medical cards, fuel allowances, children's allowances etc and people get by.
I'm not saying it's a picnic for them, or that there aren't extremes of poverty, but generally it's relative, often hidden and sometimes it's associated with a family history of addiction

The troika might soon force a situation where that is no longer the case - my guess is that it would only be then that we'd begin to experience to some degree what they're experiencing in other PIG nations.

You might have a point Y, for football thugs its a sort of recreation, an escape from the humdrum "normality" of life.
But for the Irish where poverty crime violence largely is the norm, they just want a bit of peace and quiet to watch the footy.

Mirth

y va marquer wrote:

Looks more like Wenger than Ferguson. I didn't realise they were that pleased with the van Persie deal.

Biggus

Nah it doesn't look anything like Wenger.

This is Wenger-

y va marquer

Nooo, we'd have to make him more cheerful, with a nod to the sleeping bag.

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