Gabriele Gravina, the president of the Italian FA, condemned the incident that took place between Roma and Napoli ultras and discussed the plans to root out racism.
Around 300 Giallorossi and Partenopei ultras accidentally bumped into each other on a motorway in Italy yesterday, travelling to their respective away games against Milan and Sampdoria, and trouble soon kicked off. Rai News detailed how Napoli fans spotted the Roma bus and started throwing projectiles, prompting the fans to pull the bus over and kick off a brawl on the motorway.
Speaking on the sidelines of Sara Gama’s documentary presentation, Gravina first gave his thoughts on the clash between Roma and Napoli fans.
“We need to make some sanctions much more stringent and effective. The key must be a close relationship between the institutions.
“By now we have verified that some incidents happen outside the stadium, these wild west type meetings to beat each other up and resolve their tensions is no longer acceptable.
“It is shameful what happened, and we condemn it very strongly, I believe the institutions can and must do something more. These individuals who have nothing to do with the world of sport should be punished.”
He touched on how the offending fans could be punished.
“There are rules, and these people must pay. In addition to the physical damage, they do to each other, they do moral damage and damage to the image of society as a whole.”
Finally, Gravina spoke about how the FIGC plans to review their response to racist incidents, like the one that left Samuel Umtiti in tears during Lecce’s draw with Lazio last week.
“We know that much more can be done, we have always said so, but we always come up against objective conditions that prevent you from going further. I’m referring to the suspension hypotheses that never generate the interruption of a competition.
“It’s difficult: try to imagine the inside a stadium during the interruption of a match? It is not our responsibility, but that of those who manage public safety because it is then up to them to safely manage the exit of 80,000 people.
“There are, however, hypotheses on which we are working because all this has to stop.”
italy needs to curb its football hooligans – on par with the English, however they are far better at dealing with racism
I understand his arguments – especially about suspending matches. That has to be a decision taken in situ. However, every stadium should have cameras and lots of them. Any person identified making derogatory remarks of any kind is banned, for life and from every stadium in the league. Send a delegation to Germany and to England, find out how they do it and implement it. Why are we still talking about this after decades?
“There are, however, hypotheses on which we are working because all this has to stop.” – but get on with it.