Читать книгу Calcio: A History of Italian Football - John Foot - Страница 41

In the early 1990s, I went to a boys’ football game near Florence with my ex-professor. His son was playing in goal. The vehemence and anger of the parents and relatives – the only real ‘crowd’ – were shocking. Some spent the whole game insulting the referee, and even threatening him. Others were happy merely to attack their own team, with particular focus on their own children. What was particularly disturbing was that the referee was also a boy, a little bit older than the players. The position of referees at the sharp end of the fragile legality of the Italian game has often led to violence against them. There are thousands of documented cases of attacks on referees in the minor leagues, week in, week out. In these lower leagues, and in the amateur game, referees receive little protection. Acts of violence against officials are so common as to be commonplace.

‘Spitting, slapping and punching the referee are the eternal reality of football in the provinces,’ wrote La Repubblica in 1993.²² Things came to a head in that year after two events in February. In Naples a mother, Lella Buonaurio – ran onto the field after her son was sent off. She then handbagged the referee. Much further north, in Novara, a group of fathers – again after a sending-off – also attacked the referee. More worryingly, the protagonists of this violence did not appear to be particularly sorry. The Neapolitan mother was unrepentant: ‘I’d do it again…he seemed arrogant, he had sent off two players from our team. I just lost it.’ ‘Intrusive parents syndrome’, which has been identified amongst sports-mad Americans but which seems a perfect diagnosis for Italy, appeared to have become an epidemic. Over the following decade, young players and even some clubs received long bans and big fines were handed out after yet more violence against referees, but very little changed.

Incidents of this type in the professional game have been much rarer, probably because of the very serious consequences for those involved. Nonetheless, referees have sometimes had to run for their lives, even in Italy’s top league, Serie A.