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Football, a collective hysteria. But who is the responsible for that? What a semi war bulletin has to do with a couple of football matches? This is a thing difficult to explain if not by considering the strange facts that happen in Italy. If a stranger had read sports newspapers this week, he would certainly have wondered what kind of planet he had landed on. A player into a coma, two beatings up, athletes insulting each other and the "usual" idiots who all Sundays fight to express their best concepts. If this were an isolated example, one could also think that, after all, it's the same the whole world over. But what is really amazing is the fact that what is now one of the major businesses in Italy brings forth such events virtually every week. The last event that involved Bertolotti and Ferrigno, who respectively play for Modena and Como, undoubtedly represents a very serious fact. A player unexpectedly hits another player after the match, after which the latter goes into a coma: this is a fact for which the aggressor should appear before the court. And the fact that all that happened in a sector that, in theory, should offer an educational example for the youth lays even more negative emphasis on the incident.  Some player, and namely Cannavaro, has said that now football has reached rock-bottom. And this statement seems to be the starting point, or better the point of arrival, from which an analysis of the situation should be carried out.  The fact that now even athletes have started to beat each other, after a sequence of insults, spits and other similar "gentle" behaviours, undoubtedly means that today there is almost no difference between hooligans and these athletes. The escalation in violence now involves the whole environment and we are sincerely fed up of hearing bad news all Mondays. All that smacks of hypocrisy and even conceals some paradoxes. For example, why do the media keep on blaming these facts but then continue to report all those situations where, for example, racist deeds and beatings up occur? But talking about these negative events and showing them is not, after all, what this pack of fools who only find their identity within the gang precisely want? And then, before entering a stadium, did it ever happen to you of being body-searched like a dynamitard who has clear subversive intentions? Or even that in the press gallery, to which one can only have access by showing professional credentials, a journalist cannot even buy half a bottle of mineral water because in a fit of anger he could throw it in the middle of the field? But when you look at the seats next to you, the least you can see is the usual smoke bomb or petard thrown against some unfortunate opponent. Then you obviously wonder where all these objects come from, when who is writing has even been obliged to leave at the entrance two coins he had in his jacket. There is only a sad answer for that: connivance. Football clubs know very well who these supporters are and what they take with them. They do not pay for the entrance ticket, and they go to the stadium at the taxpayer's expense under escort and even do damage. Every civil country would say that's enough. But here in Italy things are different: we go on, coming up with the excuse that stadiums could empty. But this is another equation easily inverted. Indeed, today everybody knows that real incomes for clubs are not certainly linked to the number of tickets sold. And then, would the football world really suffer if violent supporters were blacklisted and kept off stadiums? Maybe this could mean less support and less colour. But every medal has its reverse. Without these idiots, stadiums would be safer, which would maybe induce some parents to frequent again with their family what has now become a very dangerous place.  And playing before many kids and less frantic people, players would maybe feel invested with the responsibility of giving a positive example to future generations. What is the use of playing a Jubilee match before the Pope with the Olympic stadium full of kids when the following Sunday players continue to imitate hooligans beating each other with the pretext that the end, i.e. the match result, justifies the means, that is kicks, tackles, etc.? Now everybody talks about this problem. Yet, the football world goes on, gradually worsening and unfortunately there is no way to stop all that.      Paolo Ghisoni

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