So, we’ll have our football back next Sunday, with a lot of restrictions. For the time being, in Verona, Milan, Bergamo, Florence and Messina they’ll play behind closed doors. We feel that these measures could not be effective, as you know many incidents happened outside the stadiums. We think that “zero tolerance” should mean heavy punishments to people found guilty. For example, jail could be a solution instead of prohibition to go to the stadium. And again, the only criteria they used –stadium- is not enough and, if left alone, doesn’t work. Verona stadium just needs about forty electronic gates to check tickets and supporters’ identity, but Chievo Verona has the quietest fans in the whole Serie A.


Here you have the typical Chievo fans

Anyway, clubs’ owners decided not to strike, and in some stadiums they are working day and night in order to have situation under control. Inter Milan and AC Milan executives had a meeting with the prefect of the Lombardy capital, but we still do not know the results of it. Let’s see, in fact San Siro has the worst situation, it looks like it takes 8 months to complete its reconstruction (in theory). New UEFA president, Michel Platini, wants the open doors. We hope to have both fans in all stadiums and security, and to do we think that clubs and policemen has just to regain those areas of the stadiums that are not under their control (and under law control). It won’t be easy, but it’s necessary.

Let’s go to Spain, to see what happens at Real Madrid. Fabio Capello thanks the ‘Ultras Sur’ group as they did support him while the rest of the crowd was against the Italian coach. That’s why he has been warned by the Spanish government's Anti-violence Commission about this: ‘Ultras Sur’ are violent and Capello’s comments could have negative consequences. Capello was already blamed as, a couple of years ago, expressed a positive comment of Franchism. And when he was a player, he hit a journalist, whose only guilt was to criticize him.

Remaining in Madrid, and talking about the other Italian ‘Fabio’ at Real, Cannavaro said yesterday he could be back to Juventus at the end of the season. Well, he has a contract until 2009, at that time he will be 36. He plays for the most important club in the world, with good possibility to win Liga and Champions League, and he aims to be back to a club that, if thing go well, will be a Serie A newcomer? We think that Fabio 2 just thinks that his Spanish experience is a failure, and said those words just to prevent Madrid executives’ decision to give him away. Let’s see…

In the meantime, public prosecutor in Rome decided to prosecute all GEA managers, especially Alessandro Moggi, and his father Luciano, former general manager of Juventus. The crimes they are charged for are: criminal association for illegal competition, and private violence. After he was banned from football, Moggi is everywhere –TV stations, radio stations, newspapers- to claim he’s innocent. He also said that other clubs guilty, even more than Juve. Let’s see if he’s going to repeat all his theories in a court of law, under oath.

Friday night, a few hours after the death of policeman Filippo Raciti outside Catania stadium, we wrote a post that ended with these words: "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." I am sorry, but maybe I was right: the decree law issued by the Government in the afternoon confirmed that in stadiums not meeting requirements of the existing law will be played only behindclosed doors matches. All waivers are not valid anymore. We are still waiting (tomorrow) the list of the games that will be played with viewers and the ones that we'll watch on TV only. A few days ago, Tv broadcaster Mediaset prosecuted Italian League because -they say- Serie A is poor, compared to last years.

In general, Italy confirms of being a country where problems are not foreseen, and at the end comes out as an emercency that has to be solved urgently. Reason is banned, especially in football. It happened in 1950, for example, when the national team travelled to Brazil for the World Cup by boat, because one year before there had been the air crash in Superga where the "Grande Torino" was cancelled. Or, from time to time, after our national team's worst defeats, we've always decided to stop signing foreign players, blaming them for our bad results. And now, this decision: it could make sense if there were big responsabilities of Italian clubs, but who authorized them to play in unsafety? Who decided that a risky match shoud have been payed at 6 pm, on Friday? The same persons that now are stopping the game. Yesterday we wrote a post against presidents, but we think everybody is appearing in a bad light.

Let's see what happens, especially which stadiums will be available fo viewers. Ther will be surely legal appeals, as some measures (preventing interdiction to dangerous people) seem to be uncostitutional. Let us be a little bit pessimistic. Next weekend we'll have Serie A again, but it won't be the same thing, for players and, most of all, for fans.