On Sunday evening, during the Napoli-Milan football match, the majority of the Neapolitan ultras groups carried out the so-called “tifo strike” and chanted against the president of the club, Aurelio De Laurentiis. The strike was also striking because it led to internal clashes within the Neapolitan fans during the match, and brought out a situation that has actually been going on for some time, despite the excellent results that the team is achieving this season.
In fact, the most extreme groups of organized supporters have been contesting ownership of Napoli for weeks, essentially for three reasons: the rules adopted inside the Maradona stadium for the use of banners, drums and flags; the price of tickets for the Champions League quarter-final match between Naples and Milan scheduled for the evening of 18 April; the organization of the party for the probable victory of the championship. On these last two points it is not only the ultras who are at odds with the club, but also a good part of the supporters in the city.
On Sunday the contrast became more explicit. In the afternoon, the ultras fans gathered in Piazzale Tecchio to protest against the bans imposed on the fans. Then inside the stadium one of the historic ultras groups present in curve B, the Fedayn EAM (Estranei Alla Massa), attempted to impose a supporter strike and chants against De Laurentiis on everyone present. There were fans who rebelled against the imposition and wanted to support the team, while probably sharing some of the reasons for the protest.
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From here the quarrels and in some cases even the physical clashes were born. The scene was not very different from the one seen at the Meazza stadium in Milan on 29 October 2022, when Inter groups left the stadium during Inter-Sampdoria, as a sign of mourning after learning that the ultras boss Vittorio Boiocchi had been killed . Some fans rebelled, most likely because they were outside the ultras logic, and quarrels and controversies arose in the following days.
The protest of the fans in Piazzale Tecchio (ANSA)
On Sunday evening in Naples, the ultras groups watched the first part of the match turning their backs on the pitch and then concentrating their chants against De Laurentiis, rather than in support of the team. Anyone who didn’t comply – perhaps even members of another group, Ultras 1972 – was threatened and attacked. Then towards the end of the match the ultras deliberately went against the Maradona regulation, lighting some smoke bombs as a sign of protest against De Laurentiis. On what happened on Sunday evening, the Naples prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into private violence and extortion against the company.
Botte in curve between fans of #Napoli al #Maradona during #NapoliMilan. Absolute shame 😡 pic.twitter.com/DH9y2AXbRu
— Antonello Perillo (@anperillo) April 2, 2023
The regulations established for entering stadiums and for conduct within them vary according to the teams. That of Naples provides that, as in all other stadiums, the drums and banners can be brought inside only after express authorization of the Gos, the operational security group, which in every city is coordinated by the state police and made up of representatives of the fire brigade, the local police, the national health service, the club, a stadium emergency response manager and a representative of the away team (if any).
The Napoli regulation also provides that the banners cannot exceed 1 meter and 10 centimeters in height and 5 meters in length. Megaphones are prohibited and drums must be hollow inside and single beat. However, to be able to introduce banners and drums, permission must be requested by filling out a form and sending it to an email address.
During the last match, the Napoli ultras protested because according to them the fans of the visiting team, i.e. Milan, had introduced the drums into the stadium without asking for authorization from the Gos. More generally, the ultras maintain that in no other stadium there are such strict rules on banners and drums. At the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, for example, banners must be authorized but the measures are not specified, as long as “it does not hinder the visibility of other fans” and “the escape routes towards the pitch”.
Even at the Meazza stadium in Milan it is forbidden “to introduce and display banners and placards, horizontal banners, weather vanes, documents, drawings, printed or written material, other than those authorized by the Gos”: also in this case there is no mention of measures. The regulation of the Allianz Stadium in Turin, the stadium of Juventus, is similar. According to the Napoli ultras groups, therefore, Maradona would be the only stadium where strict measures are established for banners. Talking to local tv about Naples football 24a representative of the Fedayn ultras group, Alessandro Cosentino, said:
We thought it appropriate to open ourselves to the press because we think it’s the best way to make people understand what’s going on, we haven’t suddenly gone crazy. We have come from months of struggle with the club to make up for what we have always given to this team for 30 years, today we can no longer invite the fans to enter with drums and flags, they have pointed us out as drug dealers and drug addicts. They haven’t allowed us to let anything in for months, it’s not a rule of the stadium because the other fans come in and do what they want. […] The Napoli presidency does not want banners. We had prepared the choreographies, until the other day we had asked to review some decisions, but nothing has changed. Organized groups cannot let anything into the curves.
The clash over banners, drums and choreography is a measure desired by De Laurentiis’ company to counter counterfeit merchandising, i.e. unauthorized and often managed by members of ultras groups: t-shirts, flags, scarves whose marketing obviously damages the company, which has the rights to authentic merchandising.
Another point of dispute is the price of tickets for Napoli-Milan, the return quarter-final of the Champions League. Prices range – or rather they did since they are no longer available – from 340 euros for the Posillipo grandstand to 90 for the curves. The “Family” grandstand, reserved for families, costs 220 euros for adults and 80 for children under 12. It is a segment of the stadium from which the view is rather poor: there have been many protests because a total of 300 euros for a parent with a child, perhaps even much younger than 12 years, is a figure considered too high.
In general, the prices for the match are decidedly high: as far as the curves are concerned, they are higher than those decided by Milan for the first leg match on 12 April, and even higher than those fixed by Inter for the other quarter-final of Champions League, Inter-Benfica. In general, the cost of stadium tickets is an issue that affects practically all teams and causes protests in all fans.
Finally there is the party for the Scudetto. The club is coordinating the initiatives to celebrate the championship victory with the city prefecture. It is probable that the party will still be held on the last day, i.e. on the evening of June 4th. The celebrations will be in the stadium at the end of Napoli-Sampdoria. Then the municipality of Naples hypothesized a party in Piazza del Plebiscito with a limited number, that is, only by reservation.
In recent days on Republic there has been talk of the hypothesis according to which the president De Laurentiis is organizing a party on a cruise ship for a thousand people. The eventuality was taken up by many siti locals, it is not clear whether the party on the cruise replaces the one in the square, but in any case it has provoked protests from the fans, not just the ultras, because for them the Napoli Scudetto party should be a popular party for the whole city. Cosentino said again: «Let’s make sure that the team can rejoice with the entire population. Let’s lock down the neighborhoods, have them cordoned off, but the team will have to pass. Then afterwards he wants to be a ship in the middle of the sea, he wants to do everything, it’s a problem that absolutely doesn’t concern us. But we cannot allow a person who is always far from this city to be able to say that Piazza del Plebiscito is a square that will be closed and will only be given to the fans he knows”.
Some time ago De Laurentiis already had replicated to similar accusations that had been leveled at him:
My father Luigi took me to Napoli matches, my family produced “L’oro di Napoli”. Our bond with Partenope goes back a long way. My grandfather moved to Torre Annunziata out of love for my grandmother and founded a pasta factory in 1929. Do you think that if I weren’t a Napoli fan I would have stayed here for 19 years? I’m a fan of Naples city, not just Naples […]. But how, I don’t let barrels, smoke bombs and firecrackers in ours and those do? There is a way and a way to support the team, in England they have removed the hooligans and filled the stadiums with children, but here the child arrives with his parent and they tell him not to sit in his place. This creates a problem, it is harmful, when teenagers hear the chants they believe that this is reality but those chants imply a simple thing: “we are Naples”.