Italian teams are progressing in Europe, but bring their pathetic culture of suspicion with them and drag down the reputation of Serie A yet again, with Jose Mourinho and Aurelio De Laurentiis effectively cheerleading the attack on referee Anthony Taylor.
It was bound to happen, those scenes in the airport in Budapest, as officials have been vilified and held up as the only reason for their failure to get results in UEFA competitions. When Mourinho thinks he can walk up to Taylor in the car park of the stadium and shout “f***ing disgrace” at him, this sets the standard that the fans who look up to him are only too happy to join in with and take even further.
He spent most of last night after the Europa League Final defeat to Sevilla complaining that Roma don’t back him up sufficiently when he criticises the officials and declares they were “robbed.” These are the consequences. A group of fans trying to attack Taylor, chanting “kill him” and “b*****d” while one tries to spit at him, his wife and young daughter, another throws a chair. Fortunately, the police were able to take them away to a safe area, otherwise who knows what might’ve happened.
When the video of the incident went viral, those same Roma fans on social media cheered them on, saying they should’ve done more for to take revenge on the referee. I could wait for Mourinho to disavow this behaviour, but I won’t hold my breath. He knows his only power lies in getting the fans on his side, which he does by feeding their worst impulses and finding anyone to blame for failure expect himself.
That’s the trouble with stirring up a mob mentality to suit your own ends. They become rather difficult to control and at that point it’s too late to have a pang of conscience.
It’s not even as if Taylor’s performance was that bad on the night in Budapest. His biggest error was assigning a penalty to Sevilla and that was revoked after the VAR on-field review. The handball looked much worse in a still image than the video footage, as the arm was in a natural position and did not move towards the ball. It is true he tended to give many more yellow cards to Roma players than the Sevilla ones, but both teams were behaving abhorrently throughout the match, leaping off the bench to argue about every tiny decision. Anyone would struggle dealing with such childish reactions from all sides over 120 minutes.
I fully expect some to write a response to this editorial claiming that Taylor deserved everything and worse, because that is where the football fan culture is right now. It is unhinged. It is desperate. It is scrambling to find an enemy who is the real reason for your failure, rather than anyone from your side making a mistake or – God forbid! – accepting the other team might’ve just done better on the night. Tipping your hat to the opposition, that’s as old hat as a Sony Walkman.
This was just the latest example, Mourinho is far from alone in being the catalyst for fans to think referees are the enemy trying to rip them off. Napoli President De Laurentiis and coach Luciano Spalletti repeatedly blamed the refereeing for their Champions League quarter-final exit to Milan, continuing even after the Scudetto victory to suggest the club would try to win the tournament in future “if UEFA allow” them to.
This evening, Brescia fans forced the abandonment of their Serie B relegation play-out with Cosenza after realising they were going down, throwing fireworks onto the pitch and into the section containing visiting supporters, even staging a pitch invasion. We’ve seen horrific behaviour from fans all around Italy this season, with Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini trying to somehow argue calling someone from Croatia or Serbia a ‘gypsy’ is mere insulting banter to be ignored and shrugged off. Spalletti had Fiorentina fans throw bottles and attempt to slap him when he confronted a man really old enough to know better who was hurling insults all game.
This is what happens when the opposition is treated not as a rival, but an enemy to be destroyed and despised. This is what happens when referees, players and coaches are dehumanised, when people think they can say or do anything, that it doesn’t ‘count’ because they are on the other side of the football divide.
We all love Calcio here. When did we stop treating each other like human beings?
Twitter: @SusyCampanale
If Roma have any credibility as a football club, they’d summon the special moaner and sack him. One can cope with the prehistoric rugby like tactics, but all season he has caused problems on the sidelines. We don’t need this horrible cancer in serie a.
I stopped reading when you continue to mistakenly label Roma fans as saying “kill him” That was CLEARLY ONE person and it was directed at the English fellow (not sure who he was) taking swipes/punches at the fans. What a pile of steaming nonsense this site has become. Suzy, it’s time to retire. Basta already.
All it takes is one idiot to take it too far for something terrible to happen.
ps. Suzy has more credibility and love for our game than you ever will.
She did predict a moron would appear. Agree with Rosario, he needs to be sacked, quickly. And the fans who thought it was clever to attack a man and his family because their club lost a match should be arrested and given lifetime bans.
Mourinho is an absolute disgrace, dishonoring the proud legacy of Liedholm, Capello and the whole club. His increasing outbursts against the club management is of course an attempt to provoke a sacking. Once again, he will leave a club in rubble, after first throwing several players under the bus, and lately has created a rift of division between groups of supporters and between the supporters and the management. It will take years for AS Roma to recover from that. I also wonder about how the state of mind in the squad really is.