The ugly side of European football reared it’s head again in Rome as an “organised gang of Italian thugs” attacked two bars where Middlesbrough fans had been drinking yesterday as they prepared for their UEFA Cup match against Roma tonight.

3 English men were stabbed and 15 Middlesbrough fans in total needed hospital treatment for wounds inflicted in the brutal attacks. Italian riot police had to break up the violence with batons as the Italians launched knife attacks and threw lighted flares into crowded pubs full of families and Boro fans.

Five Italians have been arrested after the incident but I’ve heard very little calls from the usual suspects for Italy to be banned from the World Cup or their clubs to be withdrawn from all European competition as there would have been if it had been the other way around.

English fans are still seen as the hooligan pariahs of Europe and in light of incidents on the continent over the last ten years I can’t help but feel it’s become an undeserved stain on a group of fans who are, in the vast majority, more interested in the football than the fighting these days. The proactive measures of the English police in stopping known offenders travelling has had a big influence on the availability of travel for the more disruptive element of the English support and it’s a model some of the other countries could look at.

How many more English fans have to be badly hurt or killed in European cities like Rome, Amsterdam or Istanbul before UEFA take action against the countries involved? I rather think it could be a long time before we see any movement in that direction whatsoever when it’s the whipping boys of Europe on the receiving end of the treatment.

If it had been Boro “Ultras” careering through the Teeside streets tooled up with axes, knives, firecrackers, flares, sticks and firebombs attacking Roman families, Tony Blair would have been on the TV pontificating about shutting down English football altogether. Where is the denunciation from Italy and Mr Berlusconi or does he only speak out if an incident involves the red and black half of Milan?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 at 8:01 pm and is filed under Middlesbrough. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.