An analysis of the outcroppings of racism and parochialism in Italian soccer.

1. OF COLOR AND
BELL-TOWERS: ANALYZING
OUTCROPPINGS OF RACISM
AND PAROCHIALISM IN
ITALIAN SOCCER
Matteo Cossu
Managing Editor
Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.

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3. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
#2
IDENTITY
Roma è Totti - Eusebio e il colonialismo
in Mozambico - Mesut Özil: Die Turken in
Deutschland - Pieds Noirs: Albert Camus
ai tempi del Racing Universitaire d’Alger -
Nietzsche al Basilea - For Family & Country:
Giuseppe Rossi e la Nazionale Italiana -
Gigi Riva e la sua Sardegna

4. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Can soccer be used as
a mirror of a society?
An experimental field
to observe behavior
and customs?
How does this parallel
develop in Italy?

5. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Theorized as:
Ritual drama
– Bromberger 1987, 89
– Dal Lago, 1990
“Controlled
decontrolling of
emotions.”
– Elias-Dunning, 1986

6. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Italian racial episodes
in stadia and in fan
culture
– Ideological matrix
– Institutionalized
racism
– Infraracism

7. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Donald Sterling
Owner of LA Clippers
Caught expressing
racial remarks in
private conversation
Lifetime NBA ban,
forced to sell his team

8. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Carlo Tavecchio
A lifetime managing
Italian soccer
Calls African players
“banana eaters”
Elected FIGC president

9. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Felice Belloli
President of the LND
Refers to women in
soccer as a “bunch of
lesbians”
Gets a slap on
the wrist

10. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
PROBLEM:
MULTI-CULTURAL
PROFESSIONAL
SECTOR
IN A
UNI-CULTURAL
SOCIETY

11. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Mario Balotelli
A player that has
always attracted
attention on himself.
Media gladly rode this
wave in popularity,
augmenting both
positive and negative
aspects.

12. Mario Balotelli
Italy had contrasting
reactions to its first
non-white soccer star.
Greeted with deeply
insulting, clearly racist
remarks throughout
his entire career.

13. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
Mario Balotelli (Liverpool FC)
– 8K discriminatory posts
– 52% of the posts were racist
Danny Welbeck (Arsenal FC)
– 1.7K discriminatory posts
– 50% of the posts were racist
Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool FC)
– 1.6K discriminatory posts
– 60% based on (alleged)
sexual orientation

14. Specifically in the
Italian context:
Parochialism
Territorial
discrimination
Antisemitism

15. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
At European level,
soccer is always a
great opportunity
to bank on old
steorotypes, or
historical old wounds.
Do Europe’s diversity
models run too deep to
allow for change?

16. Bi-annual Review of Football, Culture and Society.
«All I wanted, was to become
a football player, this is but a
distant plan B».