Sporting life: Italian football

At tonight’s performance, the accessory of choice is a blue and black striped scarf. These are worn both by the two elderly ladies a few seats away from me, resplendent in lacquered hair and fur coats, and the young couple next to them, sporting the tailored and bejewelled black Puffa jackets that are the favourite winter attire in Milan. But for the scarf, the spectators could have been at La Scala, the city’s world-famous opera house. Perhaps they had seen a matinee of Rigoletto, then hurried west to catch the day’s main operatic event: the derby between Internazionale and AC Milan.

The San Siro stadium, which the clubs share, is often referred to as La Scala del Calcio. The parallels are not merely sartorial. For the Milanese elite, the San Siro is a place to preen, and television highlights take note of who was and was not in attendance. The cast has no shortage of prima donnas and the emotional pitch of the occasion is extravagant. There is no shortage of hyperbole either—Gazetta dello Sport, the Milan-based newspaper which is the country’s most-read publication, called the game the biggest derby in Europe. The boast is plausible, but it betrayed a hint of insecurity, for all has not been well in Italian football.

Despite the national team winning the 2006 World Cup and AC Milan’s victory in the 2007 Champions League, Italian football is in decline. Italy scraped its way to a quarter-final defeat at Euro 2008. Serie A, once the world’s richest league, has long been outstripped by its Spanish and English equivalents. Attendances have been falling—many leading stadiums were last upgraded for the 1990 World Cup, and are now in desperate need of renovation. Some have only acquired turnstiles and stewarding in the last few years and, despite this, violence is commonplace.

Italy’s organised fan groups, or “ultras,” continue to control their club’s stands. They fight with each other and the police, ally themselves with the far right and engage in drug dealing and other forms of organised crime. Black players endure racist chanting and banners—among them Mario Balotelli, Inter’s 19-year-old striker, who was born in Palermo to Ghanaian parents. The police, the football authorities and the clubs have tried to curb the ultras’ power but with precious little energy or success.

In 2006, Italy’s match-fixing scandals exposed the old system of referee pressure and bias centring around Juventus, who were relegated to Serie B. After 17 years without a league title, Inter has now won four in a row. Yet the probity of the football authorities remains in doubt. One Inter ultra banner at the match reads, “The game begins… oh… Milan get a penalty”—referring to the team’s tendency to get crucial penalties this season. Another says, “Galliani you’ve fixed the cup, now fix this game.” Adriano Galliani is AC Milan’s vice-president (Silvio Berlusconi is the owner) and he recently persuaded the Italian FA to move a cup match that clashed with the club’s derby preparations.

Occupying the second tier of the two ends, the ultras constitute perhaps a quarter of the 80,000 people present. Through the billowing smoke of their fireworks and flares, complex and arcane messages, symbols, thrusts and ripostes are sent between them: references to past games and events, claims and counter-claims of authenticity and prowess, and weary scatological insults, though on the night I visit I hear no racist or fascist chants. Most bizarrely of all, the ultras barely react to the game. At this match, the crowd’s explosive and spontaneous clamour drowns out their slightly jaded singing. Outside of both the law and the game itself, the ultras seem to operate in a closed, parallel universe.

Their loss, as the match is utterly compelling. Inter, by far the better team, look commanding and take an early lead. The air fizzes with booing and disapproval as the referee appears to inconsistently punish players for fouls and dives. Inter’s Dutch star midfielder Wesley Sneijder sarcastically applauds one and is sent off. The team hold on with ten men and make it 2-0 late in the second half. José Mourinho, Inter’s coach, strides around his technical area, conducting the fans. At 90 minutes, the referee, in Mourinho’s words, “decided to reopen the game.” In injury time, there is a penalty to AC Milan, a red card for Brazilian defender Lucio and Inter is down to nine men. In a blizzard of whistling, Ronaldinho’s shot is saved and Inter wins. Substitute Marco Materazzi runs onto the field to celebrate in a Berlusconi mask.

Perhaps Gazetta’s claim is true. There are few footballing events which offer such high drama, few sporting plots with so many twists and turns, side stories and red herrings. Italian football is still capable of operatic magnificence, both stars and chorus rising to the occasion. But even on a night like this the deep pathologies of the country’s football and politics are on display: the powerful shadowlands of secret societies and networks, and the enduring illegitimacy of public authority.