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'It was very insulting'
Italian fans upset at being called hooligans
Posted: Sunday June 28, 1998 10:51 AM
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Italian soccer officials were upset when an announcement to Italian fans asked them not to behave like hooligans (AP) |
PARIS (AP) -- Already facing problems with tickets, referees and
street violence, the World Cup confronted another troublespot Sunday: Just
who is a hooligan? A public-address announcement at Saturday's Italy-Norway game in
Marseille directed at a small group of neo-Nazi Italian fans -- "Don't
behave like hooligans" -- angered the head of the national soccer
federation. Luciano Nizzola said he was upset that fans from Italy,
even though they might be fascist sympathizers, were grouped in the same
category with the street thugs from England and Germany, where
soccer hooliganism has its roots. Marseille was the scene two weeks
ago of three days of violence by English hooligans. "I am very
angry," Nizzola said. "It's not true that Italian fans are hooligans."
World Cup organizers said the announcement, made in Italian and directed
at a small group of fans, was proper and dismissed Nizzola's criticism.
"I understand that it might be an insult to be called a hooligan, but
you have to call a spade a spade," said Bruno Travade, a spokesman for the
French organizing committee. According to Travade, a small group of
fans from Verona, an area of Italy with a sizable neo-fascist community,
were stopped as they tried take a flag with the swastika of Nazi Germany
into the stadium. When they got to their seats, the spokesman said,
the fans began "acting in an aggressive manner toward the people near
them." "It was very insulting," Travade said. "They were making
politically insulting statements. These were neo-fascists, making Nazi
salutes." After ushers were unable to subdue the ruckus, Travade
said, eight French police were called to the area, along with an Italian
police representative who identified the fans as fascist sympathizers from
Verona. At the same time, the PA system announced in Italian,
"Attention Italian fans. Don't behave like hooligans. If you do, you will
be treated like hooligans." Nizzola said Italian fans don't behave
like the notorious English thugs who smashed shops and bars and fought with
police in Marseille. German hooligans were blamed for violence in Lens that
left a police officer in a coma, and French authorities in recent days have
mounted a show of force against any hints of street violence. That
crackdown should not have extended to Italian fans in Marseille, Nizzola
said. The French organizers took a "one-sided decision" to make the
announcement "because 10 Italians carried a flag with the Nazi symbol," the
federation president said. Travade said the decision wascorrect.
"The English fans are those most identified with hooligans, and I can
understand that some people would take umbrage," Travade said. "But the
situation calmed down [after the announcement]. That is what was intended.
That is what counts."
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