Italy still in hunt for Euro 2012 despite trouble

ROME, Apr 12: Italy still stand a chance of hosting the European Championship in 2012 despite one of the most turbulent years in the history of Italian soccer.

That they are still in the running is either testament to the strength of their bid, proof of foreigners' starry-eyed fascination for the country or an indictment of the other bids.

By rights, they should have been out of contention.

From the high of winning the World Cup in Berlin last July, the emotional roller-coaster has plummeted downwards through the Serie A match-fixing scandal.

It touched bottom in February when a policeman, Filippo Raciti, was killed in rioting at a game in Catania, causing all football to be suspended and focusing attention on the country's outdated and unsafe stadiums.

For some, the issue is not whether the Italians hold Euro 2012 but should they? It would be little wonder if members of UEFA's executive committee, who vote on the bids in the Welsh city of Cardiff on April 18, hesitated before going for Italy.

''From the point of view of our public image, Raciti's death was not positive,'' Luigi Ludovici, project manager of Italy's bid, told Reuters. ''Though paradoxically it served to warn us of the problems we faced.

''It led to new security measures being put into place that became law last week. The checks now carried out inside and outside the stadiums are certainly better than they were before.'' SECURITY ISSUES Ludovici also said the question of who takes responsibility for security inside stadiums is being tackled to avoid repeats of the scenes at Rome's Olympic Stadium last Wednesday.

On that occasion police lashed out with batons at Manchester United fans during a Champions League match against AS Roma.

''In the past in Italy, security at stadiums has been left to the police. Now the responsibility is shifting to stewards who are employed and trained by the clubs,'' he said.

''Last week, we had two Champions League matches. In Milan (for AC's game against Bayern Munich), there were no police in the stadium, only stewards, and although there were lots of German fans, there was no trouble.

''In Rome, unfortunately, there were problems with the English fans, partly because of the Italian police, partly because of the fans, and partly because there were no stewards. ''We hope to have stewards in place in all the grounds, however, by the start of the 2008-09 season. Obviously, there are clubs that are further behind than others but we are in a period of transformation.'' Italy's critics will retort that the problem of violence is an enduring one and should have been sorted out by now.

Former Italian Football Federation (FIGC) president Franco Carraro gave a clear warning when he launched the bid in January 2005.

''With this bid, our prestige will be judged not only by Italy but by the whole of Europe,'' he said.

''We will be more credible if there are moves to fight and beat the racism and violence that we have seen around soccer matches.''

CARRARO CASUALTY

Since then, the country seems to have regressed. Even Carraro has gone, an early casualty of the match-fixing scandal.

The bid, however, has survived, and represents Italian football's golden ticket to shine again.

''Euro 2012 is not only a sporting event. It represents an opportunity to rediscover the credibility that Italian soccer is looking for today,'' said former FIGC emergency commissioner Luca Pancalli, one of the men who led Italy out of the chaos of the match-fixing scandal and Raciti's death.

Ludovici said the bid was part of a long-term plan to rebuild the Italian game.

''It was founded on the desire to start a new era in Italian football, which includes modernising the stadiums, something that could prevent a repeat of the violence in Catania,'' he said.

Violence in Italian football, he added, though common at club level, was virtually non-existent among followers of the national team.

No one doubts the Italians' ability to host major sporting events. In the past 50 years they have held Summer and Winter Olympics, the 1968 and 1980 European Championship and the 1990 World Cup.

The infrastructure is already there. The influx of fans would create few problems for a country used dealing with large numbers of visitors.

Milan's San Siro is one of the world's greatest football arenas, and with the promise of three completely new stadiums in Turin, Palermo, and Naples, Italy's bid will be hard to resist.

If it is rejected, however, ordinary Italians will read UEFA's decision in one way -- as a judgement not on the bid but on the way the game has self-destructed over the past 12 months.

As Pancalli said the day after Raciti's death: ''If we lost our Euro 2012 bid because of this, then we would deserve it''.

REUTERS