Fiorentina has called for the intervention of the public authorities to punish the racist chants of which its owner, Rocco Commisso, was the victim, the club said on Sunday during the defeat in Bergamo against Atalanta 1-0. In a press release, the club’s general manager, Joe Barone, denounces a “shameful episode” and an “unacceptable situation”.
According to the Italian media, Rocco Commisso, born in Calabria, at the southern end of the Italian Boot, before migrating to New York where he made his fortune, was the target of songs mocking his origins in the Italian South. In a country very divided between the industrial North and the disadvantaged South, slogans and songs targeting the inhabitants of the Mezzogiorno are considered acts of “territorial discrimination” and judged with as much seriousness as racist acts.
“We expect severe measures”
“Today we have witnessed a shameful episode, not of a single individual but of a whole shift,” writes Barone, also Italian-American. “We fought racism in America and today, here in Italy, we are experiencing an unacceptable situation,” he continues, saying he is “disgusted” by what happened in the stands of the stadium in Bergamo, a city North.
Fiorentina, he adds, is demanding intervention from the Professional Football League but also from the government and the National Olympic Committee (Coni). “We expect tough measures. »
In August, Fiorentina itself was fined 15,000 euros following chants from some of its supporters demanding an eruption of Vesuvius, the volcano that overlooks Naples, the main city in the south and, as such , the main target of “territorial discrimination”.