Hopeless but not serious, the Italian madness

By Benito Malacoda
November 4 2005

The game had just ended in Ascoli Piceno, a small city in the Italian region of Marche, the home team has beaten Sampdoria Genova 2-1.

In the "curva nord", where a handful of Sampdoria fans were gathering, stood Ambretta Piergiovanni, a retired nurse, waiting for the Carabinieri to open the gates.

The flare, which was fired from the Ascoli Ultras in her direction, she didn`t see, but the pictures of the blood-covered face of the old lady were going through all channels like a metaphor of the doomed mood which has caught Italian football.

Only three days before the Italian parliament had declared that Interior Minister Pisanu`s "anti-violence-decree" would become law with immediate effect. Now the vandals and their rabble-rousers can end up to 4 years in prison.

Last weekend, the organized Tifosi in Milan and Rome did not appear until 10 minutes after the games had started as a protest against the new security-measures (e.g. name-stamped tickets).

But the problem is not the striking hotheads, but the lack of the traditional fan base; the problem is the diminished passion for the game! The "Derby d`Italia" between Juventus and Inter two weeks ago did not even attract 30,000 spectators…The average attendance figure in Serie A has been falling continuously since 1992: From the then 34,200 to the current 24,900.

Meanwhile only 10% of the clubs income is generated by the ticket sales. Income through TV-rights has increased by 55%… therefore it is senseless to berate the influence of TV… TV is the new stage of the football-theatre!

Pay-per view is on the increase. Meanwhile 12 million Italians watch their Serie A and Champions League games on Murdochs Sky Satellite programs or on Terrestrial channels La7 (belonging to Telecom Italia) and Berlusconis Mediaset.

"Postmodern" football of the Shevchenkos and Adrianos is a dramatically jazzed up “performance” with commercial breaks, the immediacy of which is nullified by endless repetition....but repitition commodifies and supplants erasure to the spectacle....This is one of the negative effects of the televisual gaze.

It’s another game. And so the Italian identity crisis goes much deeper. The "calcio" is going to loose its youth! The old mechanism, that the father`s passion is transferred to the son, seems to have broken down. The Italian paper "La Repubblica" even suggested that "Football is the antiquated sport of a superannuated country".

Parents forbid their children to join the cruel, mafia-like mood of violence in the stadiums, which became the battle-ground of violent Ultra-gangs.

Marcello Lippi, the coach of the "squadra azzura", mourns that "there are no new players coming from the street".

The new stars of the Italian Arenas are more and more rooted in the slums of Africa and Brazil… but the hero of Italian youth is much closer to Valentino Rossi than Francesco Totti…. The Italian kids bought more "Pannini-Pics" of wrestling stars than of footballers last year…


But what does football still have to offer them?

If the old coach Franco Scoglio dies live in a TV-show during a battle of words, then it’s a tragedy.


If the 28 year old Lapo Elkann, favourite grandchild of former Fiat patriarch Gianni Agnelli and designated future Boss of Juventus, falls into coma for three days because of a cocaine overdose in the flat of a transvestite, then it this has nothing to do with football.


But if the highly paid Inter top striker Adriano returns 4 days too late from Brazil and immediately goes to watch the last 15 minutes of his teammates 5-0 win over Livorno – in the same week in which his Boss Moratti pumps a further €50 million into the club to settle the usual annual loss -… then the words of Ennio Flaiano, Fellinis script-writer, come back to mind:

"The situation is – as ever in Italy – hopeless, but not serious"