The Last Post About the Stadium Situation. I Hope.
By: Martha | February 9th, 2007
While there is still time for a last minute reprieve (read: for San Siro), at the moment in Serie A only the Cagliari, Sampdoria, Roma (and Lazio, obviously), Palermo and Torino grounds will be open to fans. The initial idea of having some ground semi-open — meaning only seating season ticket holders, or small groups of home fans — has apparently been discarded, and for the moment it will be all or nothing. While the enforcement of the rules is obviously fairly strict, slight allowances have been made: As I mentioned in the ground rundown the other day, Cagliari and Samp’s grounds are not completely up to code, but the powers that be seem to have deemed them close enough to be manageable, and safe for fans.
The good news is that, even if the current decision stands and Atalanta-Lazio, Chievo-Inter, Fiorentina-Udine, Messina-Catania and Milan-Livorno (Yes, Ronaldo will make his Milan debut in total silence.) are all played behind closed doors, the threatened player strike will NOT happen: As Bob reported yesterday, despite a “lively discussion,” the clubs “decided to play, to demonstrate [their] seriousness and … share of the responsibility for the country’s problems.” Isn’t that generous of them? We’ll see how long that sense of responsibility lasts.
While closing grounds is in no way a solution, the fact that they’re being closed because they don’t allow proper control of fans makes sense, and was a long time coming. We can only hope the government continues to work on the issue of close club relationship with extreme fan groups, among other things, and don’t allow the relatively minor issue of fighting over who will play behind closed doors to become their primary concern.
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Tags: Cagliari, closed grounds, Lazio, Palermo, riot, Roma, Rumors -amp; News, Sampdoria, Serie A, Torino, UltrasSubscribe
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I posted this in response to another article posted by Bob, mihgt as well pot it here too:
I wonder if anyone thought about what to do if fans showed up anyways. These Ultras and Fan Groups regard the closing of Stadiums as a Triumph. They are enforcing a ban to Keep fans OUT of the Stadium. What if they show up the Stadium and begin causing a raucous outside the Stadiums? I haven’t heard or read if they are prepared for such a thing. These fans have storage units that are either given or rented out to them by the clubs. They keep things there, such as props or signs they would use for choreography and I am sure an arsenal of other things. Who is going to stop them from going in to get to what rightfully belongs to them should they wake up Sunday and decide they want it. Hopefully it goes smooth and the Stadiums are up to code soon so there are no acts of protest. I am sure they must have thought this may be an issue.
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It’s a good question, Paolo, I’ve not read anything about that, either.
I would imagine the grounds will be closed, full-stop — there won’t be access to anything inside the stadium, whether they’re paying for lockers or not. It also seems likely that clubs would hear if organized groups were planning on showing up for games and would have heavily armed (and on-edge, which is always good) police in place in a an effort to impose control from the very beginning. Which, of course, could lead to disaster on its own.
Hopefully everyone will just be smart and stay home this weekend — after all, one would think the political groups wouldn’t want to add to their already terrible press, right? Self-interest might keep them away.
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