The Fascist Footballer

Paolo Di Canio is a sublimely talented footballer, a megalomaniac, and a fascist. He plays for Lazio Roma, a club strongly identified with the Italian nationalist right. Lazio's ultras are a fertile recruiting base for far-right paramilitaries, and they have been in trouble before for hanging anti-semitic and pro-fascist banners. One such banner celebrated the notorious Serbian warlord (and former owner of Red Star Belgrade, who turned that club's fanatics into his Tiger death squads) Arkan. He does the fascist salute--what he calls "il saluto Romano" ("the Roman salute")--toward the ultras almost whenever he scores at home. The governing body of Italian soccer has warned, fined, and suspended him on occasion, but most of these measures have been slaps on the wrist more than serious disciplinary action. Di Canio sees his salutes as a legitimate expression of his political beliefs, and his club's fanatics love him for saluting them and their beliefs thus. Further cementing his place in Lazio legend, Di Canio is a lifelong supporter--he was even a member of the most staunchly neo-Nazi ultra group, the Irriducibili--who emerged at the club before moving abroad. When he returned, Lazio was in financial trouble and Di Canio took a 75% pay cut to join them.

An interesting question arises out of an incident a few years ago wherein Di Canio saluted the fans at an away game--at Livorno--after scoring:

can such a gesture be acceptable at home but inflammatory and offensive away?

The fans at Lazio's home, the Stadio Olimpico, certainly don't seem to mind it, but Livorno is a club historically identified with the Italian political left (the Italian Communist Party was, after all, founded in Livorno). Thus, Livorno is probably the worst place in the Serie A that Di Canio could have chosen to celebrate a goal with a fascist salute. The media and official response to the event indicated that even if the soccer establishment would more or less tolerate his eccentricities when at home (fascist gestures and references, such as Di Canio's tattoo saluting Mussolini, are criminal offences, albeit erratically enforced, under Italian law), such a gesture at an away game, particularly at one in which it could be seen as particularly inflammatory, would not be accepted.

In the aftermath, Di Canio promised not to do it anymore because he was worried about hurting the team, although he strenuously defended his right to do so, saying "it makes me feel a part of my people, it is a salute to my people." His promise did not last long, but the fact that he was forced to make it illustrates the fundamental difference people saw between his actions at home and away. Paolo Di Canio's gestures, and the problems Lazio and other clubs have had with racist fan behavior, illustrate soccer's role in giving political radicalism a stage. The stadium can be a sanctuary--as in the case of Di Canio's salutes at the Olimpico--or a fortress--as in the case of Arkan's Tigers--for political radicalism.