Sébastien Louis, doctor in Contemporary History and expert on radical typhoid in Europe and North Africa, author of the book “Ultras. The other protagonists of football”, in a chat a few months ago, to the question “What was the moment in which the ultras transformed from fans into managers of goods and services: tickets and merchandising?” he responded like this: «The fans followed the industrialization of football – I don’t like the term modern football – and already at the end of the 1980s there were groups that began to exploit the situation, in the wake of sport as an industry of the time free. In 1990 the AC Milan Lions’ Den had 12 thousand members, in Barcelona for the Champions Cup final against Steaua Bucharest there were 80 thousand AC Milan supporters, the years in which Italian football was the best in the world. Coordination centers were born and if on the one hand some – a few – ultra groups saw the possibility of enriching themselves, on the other hand the clubs managed social peace in this way: more tickets, less clashes, fewer banners and chants subject to fines. Then there were those who literally lost their minds over the money that was circulating, following in the wake of football as an entertainment industry. Not only an Italian but a European phenomenon. It is important, however, to state that the realities that have transformed the curve into a source of income are very few and are only linked to certain characters. The ultras generally pay for their own sets, trips and tickets: great economic sacrifices that they face out of their own pockets.”

An incestuous relationship

Yet there is a disturbing phenomenon which today concerns the curves of Inter and Milan, awaiting the severe measures of ordinary and sporting justice, yesterday that of Juventus, with clearly different involvements on the part of the clubs, in its time those of Lazio and Naples, between what has been discovered over time and what still must and will be discovered. But it is a fact that in recent decades there has been an incestuous relationship, as Sébastien Louis, one of the greatest scholars of the ultras phenomenon, between the clubs and the worst parts of support, is a fact, that sports journalism has turned away from on the other hand too – as the current wiretaps and embarrassing photos of some colleagues are demonstrating (?) – we all know that we need proof to write about it, but when journalism is cheering, the absolute evil of this profession, that is, when brings his favorite team into the profession, as certain magistrates and politicians also do in an extremely embarrassing way, we are witnessing the worst of the worst of these dark days. In May last year, the magazine L’Equipe, to demonstrate in black and white what was underlined above regarding Italian sports journalism, dedicated its cover and an investigation to the organized crime infiltrated in the Italian curves, from Inter to Milan, from Juventus at Napoli, an investigation that sparked a bit of indignation and little more, to arrive a year later at one that endangers the economic and sporting future of the two Milan clubs.

There was a time, when organized support was born, that being ultras had completely different meanings, again Sébastien Louis: «The phenomenon is typically Italian and was born in the stadiums between 1967 and 1971, in the historical moment in which the youth he decided that it was time to make a ‘revolution’ in all sectors: economic, political, social, etc. In that period the way of cheering also changed. In the general protest, it is no longer satisfied with traditional clubs and creates structures only for younger fans, which revolutionize the way of going to the stadium. They want to cheer with great intensity for their colors and find themselves in youth structures, which, step by step, become ultra groups. (…) The ultra movement today has nothing to do with that of the Seventies and Eighties, when it was at its maximum power. An example? I remember a flyer from Arancia Meccanica, a Juve ultras group, which when it was founded said that anyone who joined would get tickets for home and away games, but today the law prohibits the direct sale of tickets from companies to organized clubs .

Clubs need cheering

In the end, in 2023, football clubs have nevertheless understood that they need support, what happened in Naples between Aurelio De Laurentiis and the ultras, before the delicate Champions League quarter-final match against Milan, was a example: because I can even have a full Maradona but without the ultras who do the choreography and direct the cheering there is no atmosphere, people go to the stadium for that too, the television show needs it.” Yet in England the Premier League has done without hooligans without losing its charm – apart from the narrative of the purists who ‘dedicated’ themselves to the minor leagues so as not to lose contact with the ‘innocence’ of the movement, between pints of beer and fights away from the stadiums -, indeed it has grown economically and mediatically, the fans are always a uniform patch of color and everyone knows the songs to sing without getting punched or slapped. Because those who know the Italian curves know what it means, for example, to carry a new banner, to occupy a space: you have to fight and if you remain standing (bleeding?) in the end you gain the respect of the leaders. Not to mention the fratricidal struggles to govern them – an expression of certainly tribal and objectively criminal languages ​​and behaviors – directly linked to the various businesses into which organized crime has thrown itself, and we arrive at the investigation into the curves of Inter and Milan.

Punches and slaps

Yet it would be enough to remember the episode in Reggio Emilia after the invasion of the pitch by AC Milan fans with punches and slaps for those who returned after having ‘disturbed the show’ without the permission of the leaders of the AC Milan team. And in this case the same goes for racist choirs: saying that they are a minority is a way to shift the focus (cit.) without addressing the topic head on; spoiler: they are never a ‘minority’ when they obey the bosses’ diktats. Then there is a theme directly linked to sports journalism: no one in their right mind would ridicule themselves on live television if they didn’t have an economic advantage, if there wasn’t a claque ready to follow them, which moves numbers, consequently advertising, and therefore money. Ergo, in an impoverished profession, where many good journalists survive by doing their job well, there is a minority – important and famous – who profit from ignorance and bad faith, trading on the integrity of an entire category, since the public he looks passively and does not differentiate, with more than 30 denarii. For this reason, reading about many who write “you are only realizing it now”, “what hypocrisy”, etc., as if wanting to teach us about life, when they have ridden the most vulgar cheering, when there are photos that portray them with the leaders of the curves, the same ones accused of various and very serious criminal crimes, tells us that even certain sports journalism, completely cleared by various television programs – and not today -, is conniving and loses credibility if it decides to do its job. Not to mention the ‘political’ management of the curves, as written and underlined several times by Paolo Berizzi, almost all of which are shifted to ideas (?) of the far right, as if the idiots always find themselves under the same umbrella: who knows why. Paraphrasing Flaiano “the typhoid situation in Italy is very serious but nevertheless not serious”; with a view on Euro 2032.