Italy vows to resist pressure to resume football calendar

Italian interior minister Giuliano Amato vowed today to resist what he said was pressure from football clubs and to ensure safety in and outside stadiums, days after a police officer died in rioting at a top match in Sicily.

Amato and other Cabinet ministers held an emergency meeting with soccer officials yesterday to outline tough measures in response to the violence.

He said that 34 people were arrested following Friday’s rioting in Catania, including 11 minors.

None was believed to be responsible for the death of 38-year-old police officer Filippo Raciti, but they were suspected of violence against public officials and vandalism.

“There’s no doubt that from that world (of soccer) pressure will come that the show must go on, that soccer is a big deal,” Amato told lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies.

“We have a duty, before our law enforcement officials and our citizens, to resist these pressures.”

Ensuring safety “is more important than economic interests that demand that the show go on as if nothing happened,” he said.

Amato’s comments appeared to be a response to soccer league president Antonio Matarrese, whose remarks that soccer should not be halted outraged many.

“We are saddened, but the show must go on,” Matarrese told an Italian radio station, in comments picked up by La Repubblica yesterday.

“Unfortunately, deaths … are part of this huge movement, which law enforcement officials still can’t control.”

He later said he had been misunderstood and had not intended to sound as though he was taking the violence lightly.

Amato said that between the start of the season in the autumn and January, the number of police officers injured at soccer matches rose to 228 from 158 from the same period last year.

The number of people arrested rose by almost 20 to 136 in the same period of time.

The minister said that a package of measures put in place by his predecessor was not properly implemented, and took clubs to task for failing to meet the security requirements.

“We are faced with a clear will to avoid these (requirements),” Amato said.

In Italy, stadiums typically belong to cities and are rented out to clubs, which are often reluctant to invest in security requirements.

New measures adopted at the meeting yesterday in Rome include barring soccer fans from stadiums where security requirements are not met and barring clubs from selling blocks of tickets to visiting fans in order to control who enters the stadium.

“It is a chance for change that we must not miss,” Amato said.

According to a report published yesterday in Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport, only four stadiums used by Serie A clubs – in Rome, Turin, Siena and Palermo – satisfy safety norms.

The measures will be presented for approval at a Cabinet meeting tomorrow.

The Serie A matches scheduled for last Saturday and Sunday were cancelled because of the rioting after the local derby between Palermo and Catania.

The decision on resuming professional games would be made after the Cabinet meeting, Italian soccer federation commissioner Luca Pancalli said.