Football Violence in Italy

Abstract

This article attempts to summarize the available evidence on spectators' violence affecting professional football in Italy. Using different sources of data, the author discusses the quantitative aspects of Italian football hooliganism, showing the steady increase of the phenomenon during the Seventies and the Eighties, and depicts the history, both from the cultural and organizational point of view, of so called ultras groups. Finally, he discusses the results of an empirical research among football hooligans supporting a team in the first Division.