Nothing more jersey number 88 for Serie A players. This is the decision taken after the declaration of intent signed at the Viminale between the Minister of the Interior, Piantedosi, the Minister for Sport and Youth, Abodi, and the Federcalcio.
“88” come “Heil Hitler”
The reason for the ban number 88 is the fight against anti-Semitism since the eighth letter of the alphabet is “H” and the double “H” is commonly used as short for the Nazi salute “Heil Hitler”. “There are important commitments such as not assigning the number 88 to players, banning the use of symbols that could refer to Nazism to supportersdefine the modalities with which the interruptions of matches must be arranged, verify compliance with the nominal allocation of seats in the stadiums”, said Minister Piantedosi.
Only Pasalic and Basic will need to change numbers
In Serie A, those who finished the season with the 88 shirt (Venezuelan Tomás Rincon had it in Turin until December, then taking the 8 in January in Sampdoria) were Mario Pasalic of Atalanta and Toma Basic of Lazio, but from next year they will change. For the Bergamo club it is a provision to be followed and the same will be done by the biancoceleste club of president Lotito.
The shares of Lazio
Lazio already during the season he had tried to change the Croatian player’s number “88”. Toma Basic, then informing Palazzo Chigi of the impossibility. Basic had chosen the 88 shirt because the number “8” had already been taken and for this reason he decided to double the number, obviously without any type of reference to political symbols. Furthermore, during the year Lazio reaffirmed its commitment to the fight against anti-Semitism several times, also helping the authorities to identify the fan with the “88” shirt and the writing “Hitlerson” at the derby.