Recently Amanda and Steve from the FSF did an interview with Lorenzo, the webmaster of a site dedicated to AS Roma and her supporters. It appeared on todays updates page so I've put a link below. If you scroll down the page the interview is in English which you'll all probably find a little easier.

http://www.asromaultras.it/amanda.html

Edit: how they come about getting asked to do that then?

There's a lot of talk from the Italian authorities about importing the English model to try and contain the growing disorder that has occured in and around Italian stadiums over the last few years. This is something that is strongly opposed by many supporters in Italy, and especially by the Ultras. Lorenzo reads our website quite frequently and many things that get posted on our site are then added to his updates page as examples of the English model in action. He contacted me about doing an interview with Amanda and after an exchange of e-mail addresses it was done.

It doesn't surprise me the Italians want to follew our example. I think they really need new stadiums over there, just I wish they weren't as characterless as ours.

Germany would probably be a better example of how it all works, but they're fan friendly approach is largely ignored, and people just concentrate on our on field achievements.

There is absolutely no way I repeat no way they will ever have the same rules in italy as they have here.

Agree with that. The ultras just wouldn't let it happen, plus the Italians couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery.

I think that's a pretty naive thing to say geez. In the 80s if someone described the state of modern football in 2008 as how it is now you would have laughed in their face.

It won't be instantatious, but over 2 or 3 decades I don't think it's impossible they'd end up with a situation similar to ours. Of course, the Ultras are more organised and stronger willed than the fans here are but if the authorities really really wanted to break them and transform Italian football I reckon they probably could.

I guess in 50 years things might have changed a bit. But italy is so completely different they have tried and failed so many times to stop hooligans inside and outside stadiums, there isnt the financial back up, police back up, fan back up to make it a reality.

Holliganism seems to be making a return to english football - witnessed more at games this season than for a few years

me too it does seem to be on th rise again, but yes there is no stopping the italians copying what has happened over here

Unfortunately have to agree, I have witnessed more incidents this season than I have for quite a while. The worrying thing is there is definitely a younger generation joining the dinosaurs in this as well. As for Italy there just isn't the political will to do it, they could easily bring it down but they just don't want too. I watched a programme about it saying unless you are arrested on the day in Itlay there is very little chance of you ever being caught even if you have been blatantly captured on CCTV causing trouble. That simply wouldn't happen in England although as my first comment demonstrates even that appears to not be the deterrant it once was in this country

hooiganism always has been in britain even when they thought they had clamped down but now there is a younger generation coming through it seems to be on the rise again.


last comment on it, back to the topic........

Where? Been pretty quiet from personal experience

and by that I mean witness to rather than invloved in

it depends some clubs have gone worse and others have gone better but overall i feel its on the rise not that i agree with it though just from personal expierience and news reportings etc

Have to say even though I went to less and less matches over the last 10 years, violence has dropped by a massive amount.

Italian referee Mauro Bergonzi was sent into hiding by police after thugs tried to attack someone he looked like, the head of the country's referees' association has said.

Bergonzi awarded two contentious penalties in Napoli's 3-1 win over Juventus in October.

"A dangerous incident happened. A group of people encircled someone they thought was a referee, they tried to abduct him and continually punch him. The only thing was he just looked like the referee," Cesare Gussoni told Friday's La Repubblica newspaper.

"He was a bank manager, poor thing, and he managed to reveal this at the end to save himself from more blows. On the advice of the police, the referee was forced to live under protection and went to another province for two weeks."

Former leading referee Pierluigi Collina, who now appoints officials for Italian games, has been sent bullets in the post and has been given a police escort as supporters's anger grows following a number of controversial decisions this season.

Italy still remembers the 2006 match-fixing scandal, where Juve were demoted and other clubs had points deducted after being found guilty of procuring favourable referees for some matches.

Meanwhile, Bulgarian referee Valeri Petrovski is recovering in hospital after being beaten up near his home in Sofia, police said on Friday.

"I was in the car, waiting for my wife, when two men attacked me with baseball bats and knuckledusters," Petrovski told reporters.

The 43-year-old Petrovski, considered one of the country's leading referees, began officiating matches in the Bulgarian top division in 1996.

Police said the incident was under investigation but did not confirm the attack was soccer related.

Great to get an interview on their page, well done.

as for the rise in hooliganism, I have to agree. So many lads from about 15 upwards who are really looking up to the wrong people who follow my clubs.