OPPOSING THE ‘SYSTEM’: IDEOLOGY AND ACTION IN THE ITALIAN FOOTBALL TERRACES A Dissertation submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Alberto Testa School of Sport and Education Brunel University September 2009 1 DEDICATION For my spiritual father Padre Pio da Pietrelcina who is always there for me when I need. In LUX 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have happened without the collaboration of the Boys and Irriducibili . In particular, I would like to thank Gianpaolo, Yuri, Katia, Paolo, Fabrizio T., Fabrizio P. and most importantly Paolo Zappavigna. A big Grazie to the Italian Ministry of the Interior and to Dr. Franco Arturi, Dr. Gabriele Marcotti and Dr. Giuseppe Tassi. Gratitude is also due to the webmasters of the ASRomaultras and UltrasLazio. I am indebted to Dr. Gary Armstrong, my supervisor for some six years, for his help and support during this project and to Prof. Richard Giulianotti for his encouragements. I would also like to recognise in print the precious advices of Prof. Rocco De Biasi and Prof. Nigel Fielding. Finally yet importantly, I thank Prof. Ian Campbell in his capacity as Subject Leader (Sports Sciences) of the School of Sport and Education for his constant trust in both my ‘sociological’ and teaching abilities. Above all else, I thank my wife Helena. Her support and love helped me through the difficult moments of this venture. 3 ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, the relationship between political extremism and football fans has been the subject of academic, political and policing debates throughout Europe. At football stadiums, in Italy in particular, it is common to witness manifestations of racist intolerance and ideological statements referring to regional, national and international issues. Concurrently, there has been a rise in conflict between Italian police forces and hardcore football fans. The fan-protagonists of such episodes are often groups known as the UltraS ; the capital S is a neologism of this study to define neo-fascist oriented supporters. The nomenclature differentiates them from the wider hardcore football supporters who are instead referred in this research as ultrá . Despite their presence among the Italian curve (football terraces), the UltraS have been the subject of very limited methodical ethnographic study. The present study seeks to correct this lacuna and is the result of ethnographic research conducted from 2003 to 2006 and updated from 2007 to 2009. This thesis seeks to evaluate the UltraS phenomenon via an examination of two nationally renowned groups located in the Italian capital of Rome. The groups, the Boys of AS Roma and the Irriducibili of SS Lazio, enact their performances on the respective curve of the city’s Olympic Stadium. This research considers the UltraS gatherings as a form of ‘ideological communitas’. In doing so, analysis introduces and explains the four essential elements of the UltraS logic: the principle of non omologazione (non-conformism), the concept of the ‘true’ UltraS ; the opposition of Tradition versus Modernity in the UltraS condition, and finally the attempt by them to live up to the ‘Warrior Spirit’. Analysis further identifies the ideological and anti-system based alliance between the UltraS of Lazio and Roma and other similar gatherings throughout Italy. This phenomenon, together with an increase ideologisation of the Italian curve , incidents such as the death at the hands of the police gun of the SS Lazio fan Gabriele Sandri in 2007 (and the concomitant violent UltraS reactions against a variety of institutions) and the appearance in 2008 of the UltraS Italia, may signify the beginning of an UltraS collective identity, and a concomitant emergent status of the UltraS as a social movement, which stands in opposition to the perceived repressive Italian State and its media allies. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………….4 Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………………......7 1.1 Hardcore Football Spectatorship: Italian Theories……………………………………8 1.2 Amongst the ‘thugs’?…………………………………………………………………...11 1.2.1 Objectives of this Thesis ……………………………………………………………….. 12 Chapter 2: Notes on Methodology………………………………………………………....14 2.1 The object of Suspicion………………………………………………………………....16 2.2 Overt or Covert?..............................................................................................................17 2.3 The Gatekeepers of Knowledge………………………………………………………..20 2.4 Data Collection and Analysis………………………………………………………......23 SECTION A: THE BOYS AND IRRIDUCIBILI’S SOCIAL WORLD……………......29 Chapter 3: Rome and Glory: The curva sud and the Boys……………............................31 Chapter 4: ‘Dare, Believe be Reckless’: The curva nord and the Irriducibili……….....41 SECTION B: MAKING SENSE OF THE ULTRAS LOGIC………………………......52 Chapter 5: Political Ideology and the UltraS ……………………………………………..53 5.1 The Movimentist roots of the Italian Neo-Fascist Youth…………………………....53 5.2 Ordine Nuovo…………………………………………………………………………..57 5.3 Terza Posizione and its 21 st century inheritor: Forza Nuova……………………….59 5.4 Casa Pound Italia and the UltraS ………………………………………………...….62 5.4.1 Aboard the Cutty Sark …………………………………………………………...... 65 Chapter 6: The UltraS communitas and the idea of Non Omologazione……………..73 6.1 The norms of the communitas……………………………………………………..…79 6.2 Non Omologazione: The Non-Conformists……………………………………….…82 Chapter 7: The ‘true’ UltraS and the Modern world……………………………..…….86 7.1 The Power of Culture (in ideology)………………………………………………..…87 7.2 Tradition versus Modernity…………………………………………………………..99 7.2.1Tradition and Modernity: Football Opposed ……………………………………..104 Chapter 8: The ‘Warrior Spirit’………………………………………………………...109 8.1 Footballers: Once were Warriors?.............................................................................115 8.1.1 Paolo di Canio: Un Irriducibile ………………………………………………….119 8.2 Boys and Girls: Gender Issues and the UltraS………………………….………….121 Chapter 9: Conceptualisations of Nation and Race……………………………………129 9.1 The Racist-UltraS Couplet…………………………………………………………..135 9.1.1 The UltraS and the Eastern Europeans Immigration ……………………………140 5 Chapter 10: The UltraS : An emerging social movement?..............................................145 10.1 From ultrá to UltraS……………………………………………………………...…145 10.1.1The Rise of the UltraS …………………………………………………………….147 10.2The UltraS Collective Identity……………………………………………………… 150 10.3 Deprivation: A Reason for the UltraS mobilisation?...............................................153 10.4 The Football Stadium as the 21 st century Italian Agorà…………………………..159 SECTION C: THE WARRIORS’ AND THEIR FOES………………………………..164 Chapter 11: Contested meanings; The Italian Media and the UltraS…………...…….165 11.1 The voices of the reason?............................................................................................166 Chapter 12: Dura Lex Sed Lex: The response of the ‘System’………………………...178 12.1 The Italian Anti-UltraS legislation…………………………………………………180 12.2 Italian Models of Policing…………………………………………………………...188 12.3 The View of the ‘Persecuted’……………………………………………………….194 12.3.1 The Danger of the Curve Radicalisation………………………………………...197 Chapter 13: Concluding Remarks…………………………………………………...…..203 13.1 Understanding the Curve Warriors…………………………………………….….209 References………………………………………………………………………………....214 6 Chapter 1 Introduction In October 2008, the world champion Italian national football team (nicknamed the Azzurri ) played a 2010 World Cup qualifying match against Bulgaria in Sofia. This occasion saw the first appearance of 150 members of the recently formed UltraS Italia . During the match, they chanted ‘Duce, Duce’ (‘Leader, Leader’) in honour of the long dead Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Celtic crosses were sported and the Roman salute was enacted during the pre-match playing of the Italian national anthem (La Repubblica –online- 12 October, 2008). The Italian media were outraged; their reporting of the incidents made the UltraS Italia instantly notorious. This episode illustrated to Italy, and the world, yet another manifestation of Italian induced football-related intemperance. It also confirmed the existence and strength of an ideologically influenced hardcore Italian football fan: the UltraS . It is difficult to make sense of the emotions, logic and violence that the UltraS express without considering the nature of the football stadium. This locale provides for collective behaviours and a wide variety of associations. The common-sense correlation of the Italian term tifo (football supporters) with ‘fanatic’ is derived from the medical pathology of typhus with its classic symptoms of alternate phases of illness and well-being (Gould, 2002). A football fan in Italy is similarly characterised in the public eye by phases of ‘normal’ behaviour alongside temporary (football-related) abnormality. Social anthropologists would argue the case for applicability of the notion of liminal moments (Turner, 1977). Active tifo do not always see the entire actual match -a paradox and an absurdity in the eyes of ‘ordinary’ fans who pay their admission at the stadium- as they busy themselves in a variety of tasks. Those leading the chants turn their backs to the pitch to face fellow supporters urging them to voice their encouragement for the team and to create a spectacle . Some dedicate a great amount of their time outside of the stadium prior to the match, co-ordinating group operations with the goal of initiating or at least maintaining the social order of this micro-system.