The Fascist regime laid the foundations of contemporary football in Italy, however its influence was not profound enough to explain the far-right’s existence in stadiums since the 1980s. The far-right’s presence in Italian football has instead been a direct consequence of the weakness of the post-war state.
Simon Martin
Historian of sport and fellow at the British School in Rome. He is author of Football and Fascism: The National Game in Mussolini’s Italy (2004) and Sport Italia: The Italian love affair with sport (2011).