Juventus - Parma clash postponed after fan death

Juventus’s Serie A clash at home to Parma today has been called off following the death of a visiting Parma fan who was run over and killed by a bus at a highway rest stop. According to the ANSA news agency, the bus was empty at the time of the incident but was being used to transport Juventus fans to the game in Turin.
The incident occurred at a service area outside Turin on the A21 highway. The fan has been identified 28-year-old Matteo Bagnaresi. The incident reportedly followed scuffles or shouting between fans, and the bus driver was moving the vehicle around when the incident occurred.
The bus driver was not aware he had run someone over, he told the highway police after being pulled over a few kilometers (miles) from the scene of the incident. Police in Asti, near the highway rest stop, said they were still verifying the details of the incident.
Both teams announced the postponement of the game on their Web sites.
“Juventus and Parma, with the approval of the appropriate authorities, have decided to postpone the game as a sign of mourning for the incident involving the Parma fan that was traveling to the Turin stadium,” the statement said. “Since it was a tragic fatality, the two clubs decided that the conditions were not right to send the teams out on the field.”
A minute’s silence was held before the other Serie A games played Sunday.
The incident will bring back memories of Gabrielle Sandri’s death last November, an incident that sparked violent protests in several grounds around the country leading to some matches being postponed.
This is a very unfortunate situation, and it would be unwise to comment before we know all the details. Passion in football is one thing but as we’ve discussed earlier, there’s more to life than football.
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This is fracked up.
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This is just getting ridiculous. I have been living in North America for three years and fans never get injured here. There are fights - really small fights - between rival hockey fans, but that is about it. The closest anybody has come to dying here was a hockey player whose spine was cracked by another player.
If football cannot control fan violence, then there should be something done and if the Italian forces do not do something about all the indicents that occured in the past year and a half, then UEFA should certainly impose a ban on their league from European competition or something similar that would really hurt them and make them think about a solution because it is getting out of hand and we are not playing Rollerball here.
The same applies for any otehr leagues in which fan vilence is at its premium (Cypriot league for example), not just Il Calcio!!
While I’m not a supporter for fanaticism in football, I believe it is also one of the reasons that soccer is so popular worldwide. It doesn’t mean that supporters need to be violent for a game to be popular but sometimes the passion that people have for this beautiful game just spills over. It is a serious problem definitely and some concrete action needs to be taken by the authorities(read govt and not UEFA). Fines or suspensions are simply not showing the effects.
While there have been no deaths as such here in the US, but I do remember reading reports of rioting in Pittsburgh after Super Bowl XL.