Italian journalist Paolo Condo feels that the animosity that exists between Inter and Juventus fans and players is a serious problem within football.
Writing in his column in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper La Repubblica, via FCInterNews, Condo reacted to the brawl that the Coppa Italia semifinal first leg between the Nerazzurri and the Bianconeri on Tuesday evening descended into.
The Derby d’Italia match between Inter and Juventus is one of the showpiece occasions within Italian football, and it is rarely a match without controversy.
The league meeting between the two teams just before the international break saw a spate of confrontations between the two sets of players after the match, whilst Inter defender Danilo D’Ambrosio and Juventus midfielder Leandro Paredes were both sent off in the final minutes.
When the two sides met in the Coppa Italia semifinal first leg earlier this week, things looked to be on track for a relatively quiet match, free from any controversial incidents.
However, after Nerazzurri striker Romelu Lukaku was sent off amid racial abuse from some Bianconeri fans in the stands, all hell broke loose on the pitch.
For his part, Italian journalist Condo feels that the longer this goes on, the more it is a problem for Italian football.
“Inter against Juve was a pretty ugly semifinal match on the pitch, but really who cares about that,” he writes.
“But then after the match there was a big brawl, which began with a referee misunderstanding of Lukaku’s celebration, which was a response to racist chants from the fans, and dogmatically applied a rule in a situation where the player was really the victim rather than the culprit.”
“Watching this massive brawl, it became clear that now this match is officially a problem for Italian football, the overflowing hatred between the two groups of fans, which infects teams and clubs, is a cancer within the system.”
“We need to solve this problem,” he continues.
