Mauro Berruto, Pd: “The Government deals with raves, but whistles on violent fans”. The request for a bicameral commission of inquiry

Beatings, cities on fire, guerrilla warfare, fires: when sport is no longer sport and becomes violence, the problem is no longer between the rivalry between fans but becomes a matter of public order. The Pd parliamentarian Mauro Berruto, former coach of the Italian men’s national volleyball team, is asking for a bicameral parliamentary commission of inquiry “to shed light on the phenomenon, analyze it, verify the infiltration of crime, any influence on sports clubs, understand the funding channels and then propose regulations that can imagine solutions to the problem, to the benefit of sport and public order. So that the clubs are no longer slapped”.

The episodes multiply and it is no longer a question of isolated violence.
“Real. There is a super-organized and fairly well-known network that has crossed the boundaries of sport, and I’m no longer just talking about football, and has brought violence even beyond the national territory. We remember the clashes between the supporters of Naples and Rome on the highway, the banner stolen in the stadium in Rome and burned by the Red Star in Belgrade, a very recent basketball match played in Athens which was thought to be a showdown between fans since it was between two teams twinned with Naples and Rome again, where fortunately there was only a few clashes, now the episodes with the Germans yesterday. In short, too many cases ».

In a tweet you recalled the timeliness of the government’s action when it came to regulating rave parties and now you wonder why when “groups of criminals beat each other in the middle of a highway or set fire to the center of a city the government whistles.
«Suffice it to remember that in 2022 there were three raves, all resolved quite brilliantly with current regulations, yet a certain type of storytelling had a specific goal. Faced with the episodes that have little to do with sport, we are no longer faced with facts about fans, but with matters of public order. Also because a rave takes place in an inaccessible place, while the fans, who have nothing to do with healthy sport, have brought violence outside the sports facilities, blocking city arteries, can hit the person who leaves the house to the shopping, which passes through there. Much attention has been paid to raves, on another level the government rightly says it wants to chase after the smugglers, but perhaps we also need to start chasing after these criminals who use sport as a vehicle, but who then have nothing to do with really with sport, which enjoy a sort of impunity”.

Does the fact that the supporters are almost always attributable to the right-wing political area have something to do with it?
«There are few, ever fewer, left-wing fans. They are almost all openly far-right, indeed more than anything they adhere to neo-fascist and neo-Nazi principles. But this is no longer about typhus. This is a matter of public order as I have already said. We need a quick, serious study, also to protect football clubs. Already years ago an Anti-Mafia Commission had dedicated an entire chapter to the criminal movements behind the world of sport, which use the curves of stadiums as a gym, where to train people. It’s not possible that we don’t act.”

What should the commission of inquiry do?
“It should shed full light on the phenomenon. I hope that there are no economic or electoral interests of affinity behind these phenomena. The fact that two groups of supporters meet to beat each other in the middle of the street, with the risk for the people passing by, is a little more dangerous than a rave. an issue that concerns everyone. I expect a gesture of great attention from the majority. People who love football and sports are the first to want to shed some light on these matters. The state must investigate and must react.