After deciding to suspend all soccer indefinitely following the death of a policeman in rioting at Friday’s Serie A derby match between Catania and Palermo in Sicily, Italian soccer officials were scheduled to meet with government officials on Monday to contemplate long-term measures to stem volence in the Italian game.
Italian newspapers said the government might keep the suspension in place for at least two weeks and hold matches behind closed doors thereafter. All remaining Serie A games scheduled for Saturday and Sunday weren’t played, and Wednesday’s international friendly between Italy and Romania was cancelled.
“If the attack was extraordinary, the response has to be extraordinary as well,” Interior Minister Giuliano Amato told La Repubblica. “The fans are risking the possibility of never seeing soccer again — of being without soccer forever, with stadiums empty and barred.”
Violence is common in Italian soccer — the manager of a fourth division team died six days earlier trying to stop a brawl — but the scenes of violence with hundreds of hooded fans chasing police and hurling flares outside the Catania stadium during the second half of the Sicilian derby were shocking. A firecracker exploded in Filippo Raciti’s face, which was initially considered the cause of death, though a prosecutor on Sunday said an autopsy showed it was due to a blow from a blunt object.