VIOLENT bank robberies, gangland hits and bloody street wars where Molotov cocktails tear through the sky.
No, it’s not the plot for a new Martin Scorsese film, but the reality of the deadly world of the Ultras – the violent far-right Italian football thugs known as ‘foot-soldiers of the Mafia’.
Ultras are violent Italian football hooligans with known links to neo-Nazis and the MafiaCredit: Rex Shutterstock
The masked thugs have been killing each other in Italy for decadesCredit: Mirrorpix
Italy’s notorious ultras are essentially violent gangs attached to footie teams, who fight in the streets on match day with pick-axe handles, iron bars, chains, slingshots, flare-guns, axes, knives and pistols.
Many ultras say they care nothing about football: it’s all about territorial defence, about the colours, the fights and the “mentality”.
There are an estimated 4,000 ultras in Italy – and shockingly, the numbers of fans joining these hardcore groups are on the rise.
Now, all the major terraces of Italian stadiums are run by hard-core Ultras who receive free tickets and political support because the force of their numbers is so great – and the threat of violent public disorder ever-present.
In his new book, Ultra: The Underworld of Italian Football, Tobias Jones explores how and why this violent underworld is expanding so rapidly.
Missiles being thrown at players during a game between Inter and AC Milan in 2005Credit: Getty Images – Getty
‘It keeps getting worse’
“Everyone says that being an ultra is a way of life. But it’s a way of life that has evolved, mutated, regenerated and reinvented itself,” Tobias explains.
And it’s the evolution of the ultra world that makes one fan Ciccio Conforti, an ultra since the 1980s, sad.
“It truly, truly hurts me to see what happens on the terraces now,” he says, ignoring the game.
“It makes me suffer greatly. Because I know we’re responsible.
“It was us who created this world. But the thing has got out of hand.
“There’s been an escalation, and we’ve gone from fist-fights to knives, from knives to flares, from flares to ambushes, to Molotov cocktails, to bombs and to pistols.
“It keeps getting worse.”
Incredibly, a surface-to-air missile was also among recent weapons seizedCredit: Italian Police
Criminal underworld
Most Ultra groups have strong links to organised crime syndicates, including the Mafia.
Some of the biggest groups are the Droogs of Juventus, named after the violent thugs in A Clockwork Orange, and Lazio’s Irriducibili.
The head of Irriducibili was recently convicted of dealing hundreds of kilos of cocaine in the capital, and it’s thought that 30 per cent of Ultras are either petty or major-league criminals.
The vast majority of groups also have neo-fascist names, symbols, slogans and salutes, invoking the words and ideals of Hitler and Mussolini, and despise foreigners.
Many Ultra groups have links to the far right, and each has a “president” or capo, who gives orders at military style meetings ahead of matches.
It’s at these meetings that core members decide on match slogans, songs, attacks and ambushes.
Ultra members all dress identically and, for major games, they spend tens of thousands of euros on what they call “choreographies”: stadium mosaics, taunts, flags and flares.
An ultra group’s own banner is like a military herald – and they will fight to the death for it.
Ultras looking for a fight before a football match – although many ultras say football is irrelevant to their activitiesCredit: Corbis – Getty
Killed in bloody brawl
Dede, a married dad-of-two, was in a pub packed with Inter Milan ultras ahead of their match against Napoli on Boxing Day last year when he was killed in a bloody Ultra battle.
Before kick-off, he was caught up in an ambush attack by the Neapolitans on the Inter Ultras.
Dede was part of an Ultra group called Blood&Honour – a group known for its neo-Nazi leanings – and was killed in the crossfire.
A Blood&Honour banner being displayed at a game – the organisation has neo-Nazi ties and is twinned with Inter Milan ultrasCredit: YouTube
Generations of bloodshed
Violence has been associated with Italian football since the dawn of time.
The term “ultra” was first used in the 1820s, but in 1970 after a rowdy game when fans followed the referee all the way to the airport, smashing as much property as they could on the way, a journalist called them ‘ultras’ and the name stuck.
Ultras inhabit a world where nicknames emerge from surnames or faces or habits – Zorro earned the nickname when he cut a Z into the cheek of an enemy.
There was a tradition in many grounds that the turnstiles would be opened for the last 15 minutes of the match to allow those who couldn’t afford a ticket to come in.
For the ultras it was an excuse to leave the ground and go hunting for their rivals.
It was what they called the ‘passeggiata’ – the ‘stroll’.
Hooligan’s code
Lazio fans hold up a sign at Roma which reads ‘Auschwitz is your Homeland, the ovens are your homes’Credit: Associated Press
Yet the ultras claim to have an ethical code.
Fights took place, so they said, only between ultras – not with run-of-the-mill fans, and numbers between rival gangs were pretty much even.
“No one ever reported anything to the police. There weren’t supposed to be blades or other weaponry.
When someone asked for mercy, you were supposed to give it,” Tobias explains.
Games are frequently abandoned when flares are thrown on the pitchCredit: Associated Press
Lazio ‘ultras’ filmed making fascist salutes in Glasgow ahead of clash with Celtic
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
