Let’s face facts: though Italian Calcio is always a pleasure to watch, cases of racism from fans are a few too many.
It’s all too easy to remember Naples defender Kalidou Koulibaly being called a monkey in an away game in Florence, former Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku being racially abused in a game against Juventus, and Lecce player Samuel Umtiti leaving the pitch in tears after racist chants in a game against Lazio.
The three cases happened in the last three years, with all the victims being black. They are merely a handful of a bigoted whole. In a recent poll conducted by Italian surveyor SWG, 60 percent of Italians agreed with hurtling racist insults during football games. The survey consisted of 800 people meaning 480 of them thought this type of behaviour was acceptable.
The issue does not solely lie with the fans either; referees and football officials play a part too.
In a report named Racial Bias in Fans and Officials: Evidence from the Italian Serie A published by the British Sociological Association dark-skinned players were more likely to be sent off the pitch than their lighter-skinned colleagues. The report’s writers Beatrice Magistro and Morgan Wack found that between 2009 to 2021 players with darker skin tones in Serie A (Italy’s top professional league) were 20 percent more likely to get a foul.
It does not get any better higher up either. 10 years ago the former President of The Italian Football Association, Carlo Tavecchio called African players banana eaters. You could not make it up if you tried.
Of all the teams in Italy’s Serie A, the first which springs to mind is Lazio. It would not be a push to call the team the poster child of football racism in Italy or the Italian equivalent of Millwall (apologies fans). Not only were the fans of the team responsible for making the aforementioned Umtiti cry, the Ultras section (known as Curva Nord in Italian) also closed in January this year due to racist chants against Lukaku in the Lazio versus Rome Derby game. The poor man cannot seem to catch a break.
Though closing Curva Nord might seem like a push in the right direction, it did not stop hardcore Ultras hailing Mussolini and throwing fascist salutes in Bayern Munich during an away game in March just gone. Around 100 fans took to Hofbräuhaus beer hall – which is fittingly where Hitler founded the Nazi party – after Bayern’s win.
So far, an 18-year-old Lazio supporter has been issued a four-figure fine. The whole scene was caught on camera footage and circulated on social media and the national news. Rome Sports Chief, Alessandro Onorato, justifiably called the whole episode shameful and said it damaged the club, the supporters, and the region.
The incident was spoken about a fair amount in the country, especially in the Lazio region.
“It’s terrible what happened in Monaco,” one local fan named Matteo Longo tells me. Matteo, a shop worker based just south of Rome, has been a lifelong supporter of the team.
“I’m not sure of what they were thinking, but they were probably just a bit hurt that they lost their game.”
When questioned about the other racist incidents which Lazio spearheaded, he responds it’s best to remember the club is not alone when it comes to football racism.
“I know now everyone wants to talk about what happened, but honestly there are other teams in Italy that are just as bad,” he says. “We’re getting all the attention.
I repeat, what has happened is not good at all, but we are not all like that. Lazio is a big part of me and it will never change.”
Perhaps Matteo is right in saying we cannot paint every Lazio supporter with the same brush, much like anything else, yet those occurrences all happened a bit too recently for them to be brushed off with such ease. The club openly condemned racism on X after Lukaku was booed. But this issue is far bigger than Lazio; it’s nationwide and little progress is being made.
Could racism in football potentially be worsening due to an outward- display of dislike by current politicians against non-Italians in the country? If this is the case, the age-old adage life imitates art should be changed to life imitates football.
