Salvini turns deaf ear to Italian football’s racism
Right-wing politician recognises fans behind chanting are among his voters
There was a stampede of public figures in Italy eager to condemn the racial abuse of Kalidou Koulibaly by Inter Milan fans during Napoli’s game on Boxing Day, from Serie A managers, to the mayor of Milan, to the head of the Italian football federation and even national politicians.
The single most influential figure in the coalition that rules Italy, the Right-wing deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, was interviewed via phone by the football discussion television show Tiki Taka on Thursday night, when he said the sort of things that might once have ended political careers. While rules seem to have changed, it was still astonishing to hear him wonder aloud whether the booing of white Italian Leonardo Bonucci was a racist offence, and why everyone should accept a certain level of “healthy banter”.
To which the answers were “No” and “No”, but already it was not hard to see the problem. The 45-year-old Salvini’s rise to prominence came on the back of the old Northern League party – Lega Nord – that despised the south, and Naples in particular, so much it did not even want to be part of Italy. In 2006, Salvini declared himself unable to support Italy at that year’s World Cup finals, but since then, he has pivoted away from secessionism and towards an anti-immigrant rhetoric that has played phenomenally well at the polls. Perhaps Koulibaly reminds Salvini of the kind of people he has turned his fire upon, those who come across the Mediterranean from north Africa in dinghies. In June, an NGO rescue ship carrying 600 refugees was refused safe harbour by Salvini, who is also the minister for the interior. His Lega is essentially a racist party in its views towards African immigrants or the Roma community and he has shared platforms with fascists. A fanatical AC Milan fan, there is an online video of him and friends in 2009, singing an infamous song about Neapolitans who “smell so bad even the dogs run away”.
On Tiki Taka, he paid the usual lip service. “Racism is for idiots in 2018,” he said, although it is hard not to think that there is a bit of racism for just about every stripe of bigot in Italian football. From the songs imploring Vesuvius to erupt and kill all nearby Neapolitans to the 100 or more hardcore Right-wing ultras making monkey chants at the Senegalese player on the opposing side.
When you combine Salvini’s anti-southern rhetoric with the anti-African immigration rhetoric, it is easy to imagine the toxic mix bubbling over when Napoli were in town for a big game, with a famous Senegal international in the team.
The racists in the San Siro were not just unpunished but unofficially endorsed by the new politics of their country. There is no appetite to seek out those responsible for the abuse of Koulibaly. No arrests have been made and Salvini has sought to minimise the incident, comparing it to more general derogatory chants while lamenting that fans should suffer a stadium closure because of the actions of a few. Salvini has suggested that the ultras meet with him and discuss the matter, as if they might have a legitimate grievance.
Despite the San Siro closure, it is unlikely games will be stopped in the future for similar events. The final decision does not lie with the referee, who on Wednesday night twice requested the stadium address system call for the chants to end. In Italy, that decision lies with the local police force’s match commander, whose ultimate boss is Salvini, Italy’s equivalent of the home secretary. It would be a very bad career move for a police officer of high rank to go against the wishes of his government minister, who has said he does not believe games should be stopped for fear of causing a riot – begging the question, is there anything he feels he can do about it?
It should be no surprise that Salvini, a man with a history of inflaming racial tensions, of making political capital out of a native fear of immigrants, has the front to express his disbelief that there could be racism in Italian football stadiums, but somehow it still shocks, even with his final throwaway Furious reaction: Napoli and Inter Milan players surround referee Paolo Mazzoleni after Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly (right) was the subject of racist chanting by fans at the San Siro comment that he would like Koulibaly to play for AC Milan. This is a man who has tried to shut down legal migration into a country where the population is now in danger of declining – bringing with it all the attendant dangers to future economic growth.
In an interview in La Stampa newspaper yesterday, the West Ham defender Angelo Ogbonna, an Italy international born to Nigerian parents who immigrated to Italy, pointed out that in English football, while not perfect, the criminal prosecutions into those who committed racial abuse meant that it was much less of an issue in the Premier League. No such prosecutions into those Inter fans, just an invitation to break bread with a politician with whom they have far more in common than the footballers of African heritage in their own teams, including Keita Balde, the Senegalese who scored Inter’s winner against Empoli yesterday.
Salvini used the phrase sano sfotto
– “healthy banter” – seeking to confuse racism and what was just the usual football fans giving each other hell. Italy’s most powerful politician did not see it the way the rest of the world, which looked on in disbelief at how, in 2018, a great football nation could allow black players to be driven to distraction by monkey chants and allow the game to carry on regardless.
Or maybe Salvini did see it, and recognised it for what it is: the very intolerance that keeps him where he is.
The racists in the San Siro were not just unpunished but unofficially endorsed