The crisis of violence in Serie A: Italian football's heart of darkness

It's the everyday scenery of Italian football which has now become a nightmare the nation can no longer live with. High up in the stands, the "Ultras", banded tightly together, sway back and forth, bellowing songs. Siamo i tifosi della Roma, siamo del commando ultra forza Roma: "We are the fans of Rome, we are the commando ultra force of Rome".

The scene oscillates wildly between the dramatically beautiful and the desperately dangerous: clouds of confetti descend on the players as they emerge from the tunnel, the songs are loud and sonorous - but as the game unfolds the confetti from the more extreme Ultras can turn to showers of coins, directed at the enemy goalie, the "bent ref", the home club star who dived once too often.

There are clouds of smoke, blinding distress flares coloured blue, green and scarlet, and rockets tossed among the crowd like toffee papers. There are Nazi salutes, monkey grunts, racist chants, and the sudden dash to attack any enemy caught in the wrong place.

The sense of danger, of being on the verge of extreme violence, that's the thrill that drives the Italian Ultras, and when push comes to shove, when the police overplay their hand or the tear-gas clouds start to billow, you've no idea what it may lead to: smashed cars and motorcycles, ransacked shops, streets paved with broken glass, fans garbed like guerrillas levering up the cobbles and hurling them at the hated sbirri (police).

At the centre of Italy's anguished debate about football are the Ultras. After the violence at Catania on Friday, 2 February, took the life of a policeman, the Ultras went to ground; but when football comes back to life again on Sunday they will be in the front row again, dominating the stands across the country.

They are not insatiable drunkards like their British equivalent, though some may guzzle beer, sniff glue or smoke joints. They are all tightly organised in their own clubs and gangs, each under their own capo or chief. They unroll huge banners within the grounds, often with neo-fascist or racist slogans, and cluster around. Some will expect, invite and provoke violence, especially at the explosive derby games like Catania-Palermo or Roma-Lazio, but also at other matches (Roma-Verona, Roma-Brescia, for example) where there are old scores and long-running vendettas to be perpetuated.

Sobriety (relatively speaking), solidarity, hierarchy, a veneration of violence that has a strong fascist odour about it, these are the distinguishing features of the young men who have brought Italian football to an unprecedented crisis. But then there is also the intimacy with the teams: the way players run to the curva (stands) when they have scored, the way the Ultras are cosseted and privileged by club managers, given free tickets, free flights on team planes - privileges that the emergency law bans.

Club bosses treasure the passionate support, but also fear the reaction when the team falters, when players take to diving, when the coach loses one game too many. It may be love, but it is not unconditional, and some Ultras have no compunction about lying in wait for players they have taken against and beating them.

Apocalyptic questions were being demanded of Italian football this week in the wake of the death of Chief Inspector Filippo Raciti. Is it reformable? Does it risk extinction? If it is mired in corruption at the top and chronically violent at the bottom, how can it be saved?

It's pretty obvious, standing on the outside, that the Ultras are at the heart of Italian football's problems. But the supporters themselves, whether violent or peaceful, have no doubt that everyone is to blame but themselves.

Rome is one of Italy's lucky clubs. They have to share the city's Olympic stadium with their deadly rivals Lazio, but the ground itself is a Rolls-Royce among the decaying jalopies around the country. It was rebuilt from scratch to host the 1990 World Cup and the billowing white steel sails of its dramatic roof remain a symbol of Italian football's pride.

It has a capacity of 85,000, all seated, which again makes it practically unique. A multimillion-euro refit, just completed, has equipped it with the surveillance and police capacity and turnstiles to satisfy Italy's tough new stadium rules.

When Francesco Totti leads his team on to the pitch on Sunday afternoon against Parma they will therefore be greeted by the roars of the crowd, and not by the stony silence of empty grounds which will be the setting for most games.

But the Olympic stadium is no less susceptible to trouble. The Roma-Lazio derby in March 2004 was suspended by the referee after a (false) report that a baby had died in the ground. Ultras from both sides swarmed on to the pitch and harangued the players and officials, urging them to play on. When the suspension was upheld the violence spilled into the streets, much like what happened in Catania.

"The basic reason you get trouble at all derby matches is because of the worsening of the relationship between the fans and the people who run the game," said Maurizio Rosi, a lifelong tifoso (fan) of Roma. "The fans don't trust these institutions. They treat us arrogantly, they abuse their powers."

Much of the problem in Catania, they say, was a result of the decision to keep the visiting Palermo fans bottled up in coaches throughout the first half of the game, only letting them in 20 minutes into the second half, whereupon an explosive clash between the rivals was instantaneous.

"Sometimes we go to an away game by train," said Rosi, "and they keep us on the train until the game's over and then send us all home again. If you lodge a complaint about your treatment they give you the run around. They change the times of the games without notice, which means that you can only come to the game by missing a shift at work. So people get furious. If they smash up cars when they come out of the ground after a game, it's understandable."

The authorities are perceived as spiteful, prejudiced and malicious, and this goads the fans to take revenge. But they are also seen as incompetent - enabling the violent fans to do their worst. "They tell you you can't come into the ground with rockets," said Rosi, "but it's easy. One person goes in clean, then goes to the wall in another part of the ground and his mates throw them over."

"This country has got more laws than any in the world," said Vincenzo Mantini, 59, who runs a club for Roma fans in the working class district of Garbatella, "but none of them are applied!" "There's supposed to be a ban on fireworks. And there's no way you can hide one of them big bangers down your trousers. But at the ground there's always people who let you in with these things... They talk about applying the English system here, but it will be difficult. They pass new laws and new rules, but people simply ignore them."

In the general atmosphere of corruption and permissiveness, the Ultras have not only managed to survive, dominating the curva in stadiums up and down the country, but to prosper. "I've thrown fists, I've got involved in scraps when Roma is playing the enemy," said Mantini, "clubs like Verona, Brescia, AC Milan. But the 17- and 18 year-olds today don't understand." And, according to fans in Rome this week, they also get hard cash from extremist political parties. "The Ultras are paid by the extremist political parties to hang out their banners at the ground," claimed Rosi.

"We in this club never start riots," said Mantini, "because we are there to watch the game. But many of the Ultra groups belong to the far right or left parties - this is a big mistake. I've seen banners at Rome games saying 'The Jews should have been finished off in the ovens'. That's not on. They shouldn't let politics into the game, it's got nothing to do with football."

But Italian football has had its Ultras for decades, and although 18 people have been killed in or around football games since 1963, the mood of crisis is worse than ever. What is the explanation? "There's the lack of jobs," said Rosi, "so many other social problems. All their anger is focused on Sunday. And it's all got much worse since the arrival of satellite TV coverage. Now the financial interests in the game are so big, there is huge pressure to win, there is so much money hanging on the result, and the fans get infected by the same spirit. Ten years ago families used to come on a regular basis, they had family season tickets. Today the mood is very different."

"The game's changed a hell of a lot in the 40 years that I've been following Roma," said Angelo Vari, 52, a decorator and a regular in the Garbatella club. "Back then the great thing was meeting the supporters of other teams, we'd have laughs together. Even ten years ago you'd bring kids, women - but not today because there's no knowing what might happen.

"Why have things got worse? Because the system doesn't work," said Vari. "The bastards who are running politics are the worst people in the country, we're gradually slipping down to the level of a Third World country. The kids have no jobs, they're getting hooked on drugs ... It's worse today because there are more police and stewards ... They don't know how to manage things.

"At the grounds there are police everywhere with helmets and batons and guns - if you want to go and take a leak they make you wait, they make everything difficult. And in a crowd it just takes a spark to set things off."

Every home game of the season, "Uncle Stefano" turns up at the Olimpico dressed as a Roman centurion, complete with red-plumed helmet, blood-spattered wooden sword, the lot. Once he was the boss of a gang of Ultras - "I only fought in self-defence, but I was always in the thick of it when things happened," he says - but today he appears a throwback to Italian football's days of innocence and fun, when matches were scheduled for the convenience of players and fans, and Rupert Murdoch was a little-known Australian newspaper proprietor.

For Uncle Stefano, the tragedy of Catania is easy to explain: "The fans felt trapped and surrounded, otherwise they wouldn't have dared to attack heavily armed police. It's OK to go into mourning, but people die every day and they don't have the whole nation in mourning. Closing down the whole sport was excessive."

Turning up at the Olimpico in fancy dress is not without risks of its own. "A while ago, when Roma was playing a Turkish team, ten Turks jumped me, knocked me to the ground and broke both my legs," he recalled with a wistful smile, as if remembering Caesar's campaign against the Gauls.

So what keeps him turning up at the age of 52, in defiance of leg-breaking Turks and ball-breaking police? "I go dressed like this to represent Rome, on behalf of my comrades in jail who can't be with me ... Roman fans are different from other Ultras. It's above and beyond mere support, it's love for our city. It's a religion, a faith." This week, a statement like that sounds very quaint.