MILAN, Nov 8 — Italian football authorities are investigating alleged anti-semitic chanting from Lazio fans during the weekend’s Rome derby, Serie A announced today.
In a statement, Italy’s top flight said that a “follow-up investigation” would be carried out to verify the number of supporters making the offensive chants, videos of which circulated on social media after Lazio’s 1-0 win over Roma on Sunday.
Serie A said the “boorish, outrageous and religiously discriminatory” chants were aimed at Roma fans “several times before the match and once during the game itself”.
Yesterday, Lazio condemned “expressions of anti-semitism and racism which happen in almost every match at every stadium in Italy”.
“They’re not part of our culture and don’t represent our fans,” the club added in a statement.
Fascist fan groups are common across Italy, including at Roma, but Lazio’s hardcore supporters have a connection to the extreme right which stretches back to at least the 1970s.
Lazio’s historic ultras group, the “Irriducibili”, had friendly relations with their equally right-wing counterparts at Inter Milan and Verona.
Last season the handler of Lazio’s eagle mascot praised dictators Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco after being suspended by the club for performing a fascist salute at the end of a match.
Mussolini’s great grandson Romano Floriani plays for Lazio, although he is yet to feature in a first-team match and claims to have no interest in politics.
The 19-year-old’s mother is former right-wing politician Alessandra Mussolini, who was once a member of neo-Fascist party Italian Social Movement. — Reuters
