AC Milan president Paolo Scaroni has stressed the need for San Siro and other Italian stadiums to feel like safe spaces for the supporters that attend.
According to Corriere della Sera (via MilanNews) this morning, the presidents of Inter and Milan – Beppe Marotta and Scaroni – have sent a letter to Lega Serie A to open a working table to ‘share the development of all issues related to the safety of facilities’.
The aim is to involve all institutions, both sporting and otherwise, and all clubs. Today in Rome, president Ezio Simonelli and CEO Luigi De Siervo will meet with the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi for an ‘update on the phenomenon of crime in stadiums’.
Scaroni gave a statement as part of the letter: We love our fans and we are grateful for the support they give us, we just want the stadium to be a safe environment, where there is no room for violent people and criminals and we continue to collaborate with the prosecutor’s office and the institutions.”
Marotta added: “Football is a social phenomenon with a strong aggregating charge and the stadium must guarantee maximum security against any type of violence, our commitment continues so that it is a comfortable and safe habitat.”
As a reminder, there is an ongoing investigation into the Curvas of Milan and Inter amid alleged criminal activity involving members. We wrote at length about the issue in a Substack article titled: ‘Crossed ties, surprise names and sadness: A look into the ultras underworld’.
I can understand that everyone should be able to attend a football match in safety and especially families with kids but at the same time football is also like a vent for release of frustrations that otherwise isn’t room for in the daily lives of people so I will strongly oppose completely sanitizing it and turn it to family sport entirely. Basically its like in the old Rome when people attended the gladitorial combats in the Colosseum or for a lack of better term heroine for the people keeping the masses at calm to some extent who otherwise would revolt against those in power hence why the Colosseum was actually build to begin with.
If the sport and its spectators is completely watered down and just made into a family spectacle it will lose a great deal of its lure and soul and the fact that in recent years ticket prices goes up drastically combined with super expensive tv subscription to make the rich richer while common people is actually is struggling to turn every little penny to get by is an afront to the very said people.
Talking about keeping criminals and violent people out of the stadiums also is a pretty hollow stance because if they are convicted and served their time then that should be that, not to mention how many of the ceo’s and owners of the sport hasn’t themselves been convicted or has contacts with criminal politicians or entities and has invested money in stocks in weapon companies basically getting richer by violence.
I know this post might not be the most popular opinion but football violence in Italy and the western part of Europe even if it excists its hardly of what it was in the past and besides of that attending a football match isn’t or at least shouldn’t be like attending a freaking tennis or golf tournament as the sport at least has a background that stems from rugby like brawls many centuries ago.
I respectfully disagree, if you want to get historical in Constantinople sports violence destroyed the city killing thousands and giving Justinian the power or forcing his hand (depending on your perspective) to massacre thousands more. Violence breeds violence not the other way around. Don’t get me wrong I love the tifos, marching, the signing and hurling insults at Inter fans. But if you think it’s healthy for ultras to operate as criminal entities (like what appears to be happening at the san siro) then I think that line of logic is flawed
Well that’s also fine but I basically took a stance against violence in the first line but there is no debate about the history of why the Colosseum was build and for that matter the background of football predating the modern day sport as we know it since the first English clubs. My real point here is dont water down the sport its the peoples sport and yes people do go to stadiums or watch football to get away from their mundane lives hence why i used the term heroine for the people. Nowadays the sport is turning into something else. Lots of countries you cant have banners, fireworks and certain songs are banned because they are too offensive towards the oppositions etc. Football is moving from the peoples sport to something different and that I will always oppose,
Obviously I can understand why you cant have people running around killing eachother or victimizing innocent people on stadiums. I do nevertheless doesnt care if hooligans beat eachother up.
Whether people are convicted shouldn’t matter if they have served their time as its not clubs jobs to act as a new courtrooms and judges for peoples past sins.
“Criminals”???
He must be referring to himself 🤣🤣🤣🤣