Bring in compulsory history lessons for Italian footballers
Abbiatti: Stupid and/or naive
That is an overstatement obviously, but Italian football does seem to be hotbed of naive footballers with some extreme political views. I am not closely enough involved in Italian football to be able to prescribe a solution, but I can certainly detect a problem.
AC Milan keeper Christian Abbiati is the latest player to declare himself a card-carrying fascist. He said: “I am not ashamed to proclaim my political beliefs. I share [the] ideals of fascism, such as the fatherland and the values of the Catholic religion.”
So he is either very stupid or knows exactly how far he push his views in public.
Handpicking a couple of “ideals of fascism”, which do not seem particularly offensive for public consumption is reckless. How many impressionable Milanese kids will think that fascism is the best route to a contract with AC Milan? Youngsters whose education of the loss of life during the Second World War might not be quite as thorough as previous generations.
I cannot vouch for whether Abbiatti knows any better or not, but he certainly should. You can respect your country and your religion without bringing fascism into the equation. What Abbiatti invokes, deliberately or otherwise, is support for Benito Mussolini and the brand of totalitarian regime that swept across Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. History tells us that this form of rule does not tend to conclude pleasantly.
This might all be a bit heavy - and I am normally one for keeping politics out of football where possible - but if players, and notably Italian players are to begin spouting the virtues of fascist regimes through the media with increasing regularity then a little more careful analysis is required.
Abbiati is not the first player to make his fascist views public. Paolo Di Canio has famously celebrated goals with fascist salutes and shown off his fascist tattoos on the pitch. It is probably a fair criticism of Di Canio to say that while his football brain was genius, perhaps his common sense leaves a little to be desired.
Short of the aforementioned compulsory history lessons, perhaps some of the games more academic minds should engage in a debate on the subject.
I think your the naive one… He’s free to choose his political point of view and its certainly not your place to judge him… History and right from wrong is dictated by the winners of war and if Italy/Germany had won WW2 you could easily replace “fascism” with “democracy” in your article
I’m not defending Mussolini, and I do not agree with Fascism, but I have to say that Fascism didn’t only exist during the WWII, and while we all know how that ended up, it’s just a political sistem, that does not include antisemitism nor anything of the sort. I’m not a fascist, but I think it’s plain stupid to criticise a player for his political views. Ask in Russia how many people think that they need someone like Stalin back in power and the numbers will be shocking, but will anyone write anything about it?
Berlusconi, the (unofficial) ac milan boss and official italy boss is a right wing politician, who has at least some sympathy towards mussolini and fascism. So abbiatti isn’t the only italian loving fascism, in fact mussolini is still higly regarded by quite a big part of the italians. They say that when mussolini’s fascism had the power all was good and since then it has been a mess in Italy. I can’t agree with the first part but i can’t deny the second part.
So if you think those footballers haven’t had proper education, I think you better send all the Italians back to school then, and while in school maybe someone can teach them to play some proper attacking football instead of all that defensive minded ****
On the other hand, how educated are the football players? How many of them have had decent schooling and higher education from reputed institutions (not some school which the football academy chooses)? Should we be surprised that they spew forth such nonsense ?
Maik, that would be Lenin… Lenin, not Stalin.
iqnadirshah, such nonesense, it is their right to believe in something. Does anybody criticize you for having been brainwashed into believing that a free market really is the best thing for us politically?
I am personally a leftist… Vive le Quebec Libre!!
Andrei I have no clue what you are trying to say (blame my ignorance/brainwashing for that). Personally I think I’m a pacifist and these notions of one country being greater than the others is outdated. That is why I prefer war to be limited to the Football field. Which leftist are you? That term has different meanings in different ares (Eg. Israel)…………..
it all depends considering how individually they lived u must get into the countrys view and ideals im a american a open minded american that speaks spanish and portugues and has limited knowledge of italian alotta russians enjoyed communism OMG HOW COULD THAT BE SO?! well it is it all depends on the individual past history oh and the attacking football how may champs league trophys has gone to italia and the forza azzuri nat team won the world cup dont tell us how what stlye to use
Koewart, you are an idiot. Berlusconi has nothing to do with fascism. And Rob, you shouldn’t be judging people. First of all, you know nothing about Italy so stop insulting it. This is one of the worst articles I’ve ever read. It should be deleted.
Nope, Stalin. Well, Lenin too, but also the all-seeing father.
Sorry, I had to add, that IMO, we are forgetting the anthropological side of this all. People almost all the time think that the solution was on the revolution that never was, the idea that no one heard, or the king that lost his throne (fascism/communism), that’s the way it has been for a loooong while.
why dont you mind your own business,disregard his personal life and concentrate on his play on the pitch….rob parker is an idiot.political views and religion should be off limits.
I can’t believe most of the comments on here. This is not just a matter of opinion. The far right is gaining ground in Italy, with openly racist parties like the Lega Nord serving in the government. When Gianni Alemanno became mayor of Rome, there were youths giving the fascist salute and yelling “Viva il Duce!” Racist attacks on immigrants are rising, and a Roma encampment was even burned to the ground.
At a time of economic downturn where the left is not too strong, the threat of organized fascists is actually pretty serious. If you were on the receiving end of Italy’s far right, you might not be so casual about their return to power.
A big part of this process is trying to make fascism respectable again, and politicians like Alemanno do this a lot. They talk about the “complexity” and “ambiguity” of fascism, or the “good intentions” of the people involved. This is a way of breaking down the taboo that fascism (rightly) gained during the 20th century.
So this isn’t about an individual footballer’s personal opinions, or his low education level or anything like that. Abbiati was expressing a large, frightening trend in recent Italian politics, and we should look at that context if we want to understand what he said. I’m glad Rob Parker wrote about this; I just wish some of the commentators here took the far right a bit more seriously.
Actually this is about an individual footballer’s personal opinion, since this article is all about Abbiati, and what’s happening on Italy has nothing to do with it. I’m not saying that everything’s fine down there, but the thing is that this article talks about one person and his beliefs. If it were the other way around we would be writing completely different comments. But then again, this is a football website, not politics, sociology nor anything of the sort.
Neil (and a few others) - thank for telling us what we should and shouldn’t be.
I don’t agree with Rob’s slant here BUT he’s got a point - footballers need to be more responsible and aware of what they say and do.
having said that - here’s one for Rob - what’s wrong with fascism?