Violence around Catania stadium

This is a derby that had to be played on a Friday night, so it didn't disturb the Sant'Agata procession. The police had to supervise the area around the stadium, in the afternoon of a working day. Outside, the situation is abnormal, and there is something similar to civil war; everybody knows how fierce the rivalry between Catania and Palermo is. Twice, the game is suspended - the footballers cannot play because of the tear gas on the ground. A policeman - police chief inspector Filippo Raciti, 38 - dies because of a crude bomb that explodes inside his car, and there are more than 100 wounded people in the Emergeny Room of Garibaldi hospital.

Well... this is not football; this is urban guerrilla warfare, the natural result of years of poor lawmaking against violence. They have been a complete failure: all the measures taken have just kept peaceful people away from the stadiums, and ended up concentrating the hooligans and people that consider football to be an excuse to give vent to their animal brutality. This afternoon, something happened at the beginning of second half when the Palermo "Ultras" arrived at the stadium, and there was a delay due to the large amount of security checks. And at the end of the game there was, as we said, the civil war. Maybe this was also due to Palermo winning with a controversial goal.

Immediately, Commissioner Pancalli decided to suspend the championships. Next Monday there will be a meeting between FIGC and the Government, but let us be a little bit skeptical; this is not the first time that someone has died because of a football match. It's sad, but it's also sad listening to the politicians saying that things like this cannot happen anymore (until next time, we say), and the football executives that suspend the championship (when we don't know how extensive this suspension could be). Of course, to stop for a day as a sign of respect for a policeman who died is correct, but they want football to be stopped until they find an ABSOLUTE solution. They want to reflect, and maybe stop all the championhips for the whole year. And then? When their false indignation has finished, nobody will think about this anymore. Especially the people that now are crying, who yesterday were arguing and shouting at the TV for a penalty or an off-side.

Unfortunately, nobody in Italy thinks about the football fan - the customer, paying a lot of money to watch the game. Are the violent people a minority? Yes, but don't worry, they do their best to make it impossibile for pacific people to go to the stadiums. Nominal tickets, prohibition to sell tickets at the stadium the day of the match, personal inspections to everybody going into the stadium. And all the while the violent never go to jail, and just keep on fighting the police all around.

As fans, we think that things cannot really change unless they focus on heavy punishments to the perpetrators of violence. For too long a time, the stadiums have been a free zone, where the laws do not apply, and they continue to be. Violence in football could be solved with cameras that identify the guilty parties, and with more stewards, and less policemen if possible (on several occassions, violence erupts because of clashesh between the police and hooligans). But we bet that the executives will think long and hard, and still do nothing effective. In the end, maybe they will decide that it will be possible to watch football only on TV; on the channels they own, of course.