All in all, Thursday night was a good night for football in Glasgow.
Celtic came out with the three points in a tense game against Lazio thanks to an 89th minute winner from Christopher Jullien, and Neil Lennon’s men remain top of Group E for the time being after three games.
The game went smoothly, without any real incidents, but it’s what happened before that caught the eye of many newspapers.
On their way to Celtic Park, a number of Lazio fans were spotted making what have been described as ‘fascist salutes’.
Both Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere dello Sport call them that in their reports of the incident, with the former claiming ‘thirty Lazio supporters made them’, while the latter said that ‘when the procession started towards the stadium, along Buchanan Street, several Lazio ultras let themselves go to the fascist salute’.
They explain the gestures were picked up by Scottish Sun reports and describe how there is ‘extreme attention in the United Kingdom to the issue of racism and political propaganda within the stadiums’, especially after what happened with the England national team over in Bulgaria.
However, they end by making it clear that ‘at the stadium, nothing happened and this counts for UEFA’.
Il Tempo, a local newspaper, don’t even mention them, but Il Messaggero, another Rome based outlet, do, and they seem to try and play everything down.
They never once mention the word ‘fascist’ in their report, solely calling the gestures made by Lazio fans as ‘Roman salutes’.
There’s brief explanation, claiming the fans had their ‘arms stretched to the notes of Avanti ragazzi’, a song about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.
Why would they sing that? An excerpt from this article from the website Gentleman Ultra explains it: “The song, titled ‘Avanti Ragazzi’, was written by Italians and has gained widespread popularity amongst the Neo-fascist community in Italy. Looking at the lyrics the reason for this may be hard to discern, as there is no overtly Fascist rhetoric within it. However, the main reason for its popularity is that the song is seen as vehemently anti-communist. The song is viewed from the standpoint of a brave nation standing up to the evils of the Soviet Union and communism, and as history has taught us, fascists and communists do not make good bedfellows.
The politically outspoken banners may be gone but politics remain on the curve. Nowhere is this more evident than with ‘Avanti Ragazzi’, a song by Italians, about the Hungarian revolution of 1956, that is seen as a beacon in the fight against the red menace, sung by Lazio Ultras.”
Either way, Il Messaggero seemingly try and brush it all under the carpet, claiming that ‘everything went smoothly, but a pity for the stain of the Roman salutes’ as Lazio are ‘under the UEFA lens’.
There’s also a mention in Corriere dello Sport of ‘fifty ultras from Lazio near Glasgow Central Station who were on the hunt for Celtic fans in streets downtown’, but the Scottish police intervened and nothing happened because ‘they had not found the ultras of the Green Brigade to confront’.
