It’s Official: Football is on for the Weekend; Five Lots of Grounds Will be Empty

By: Martha | February 7th, 2007

More Milan derby chaos. The government today officially passed the previously discussed series of measures designed to improve safety in Italian football. In addition to the detailed stadium regulations — which will see most grounds admitting only home fans, if that — the government also requested that all games for the next month kick off in the afternoon, and that journalists establish their own code of ethics “so as to not inflame public opinion around sporting events.” I don’t really get how the afternoon thing helps, unless it’s because daylight will make it easier to see the faces of the people in mobs (a depressing thought), but the journalism element is interesting. I assume they’ll draw something up — I wonder if there will be a noticeable lack of passion in football-related articles for the next few months, or if the effects will be harder to see.

The best response to this afternoon’s events is this observation: “The clubs are not expected to take the severity of the new laws particularly well.” They won’t like to see rivers of money, flowing out of their coffers? You don’t say. Though officials are supposed to be making visits to all the Serie A and Serie B grounds tomorrow to check how close they are to fulfilling the Pisanu rules, it seems as if the decisions have already been made: Ascoli, Atalanta, Catania, Chievo and Udinese will all be playing behind closed doors for the forseeable future, while the San Siro will be wide open. Full categorizations are after the jump.

Alright, I don’t know where it came from, but goal.com’s list of ground statuses (mentioned above) is entirely wrong. According to La Repubblica (thanks to SpanglyPrincess for the pointer), only Turino-Reggina, Sampdoria-Ascoli, Roma-Parma, and Palermo-Empoli will be open to the public this weekend; all the other stadia, no matter how close they are to compliance, will be closed, a status that could well continue through the upcoming Champions League matches. There is the hope, however, that once certain conditions are met, season ticket holders will be allowed into the grounds. Said Italy’s Minister of the Interior, “It’s very simple. From today, the games will be played behind closed doors in stadiums not up to the norm. When, however, there are turnstyles and access checks for tickets, the stadiums not up to the norm will be able to be open for season ticket-holders only. Speaking to some, I have heard that this work will take just a month, it’s like saying two games.”

Got all that? Me either.