ROSE-TINTED VIEW OF ITALY MASKS VIOLENCE AT HEART

GIVEN that modern football is often so sanitised and corporate, there is an urge to romanticise grounds such as Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo and the culture that surrounds it. There is an intensity about the place on match day, a sense that it is a throwback; just about football, and nothing else but football. It is the antithesis of the homes of half-and-half scarves and hospitality. And yet, at the same time, it can be a vile place to visit. The constant threat of indiscriminate violence around the city, the edgy passage to and from the stadium. That a Liverpool supporter ended up in hospital on Tuesday night after another senseless beating has been barely reported. It isn’t news any more that people are attacked minding their own business around football matches in Italy. A chap from The Guardian got an old-fashioned kicking on his way to the ground, too, while police stood and watched. Maybe newspapers would like a quote from him the next time they commission pieces from middle-class football tourists speciously lionising ultra culture. And this will continue while Italian football — and society — tolerates extremes of thought and behaviour. Cagliari’s racists have got away with it again, no action being taken over the monkey chants aimed at Romelu Lukaku earlier in the season, because police told investigators that ‘only on the occasion’ of his penalty were ‘chants, shouts and whistles’ heard as he prepared to shoot. So that’s all right then. It’s not racist to make ape noises if a penalty is being taken by a black player. Glad that’s cleared up because, let’s face it, we’ve always wondered. Juventus have taken on their ultras this week, but only because these charmers had grown so powerful they were blackmailing the club to be given free tickets they could then sell. The threat was to begin racist chanting and cause the club trouble if it did not comply. Presumably, not when a penalty was being taken, or how would anyone know?