Showing results by author "Tobias Jones" in All Categories

Italy's ultras are the most organised and violent fans in European football. Many groups have evolved into criminal gangs, involved in ticket-touting, drug-dealing and murder. A cross between the Hells Angels and hooligans, they're often the foot-soldiers of the Mafia and have been instrumental in the rise of the far-right. But the purist ultras say that they are insurgents fighting against a police state and modern football. Only amongst the ultras, they say, can you find belonging, community and a sacred concept of sport.

One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy. Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo Restivo, a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting women's hair on the back of buses. Elisa's family are convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughter's disappearance, but he is protected by local bigwigs: by his Sicilian father, by a doctor with links to organised crime, by a priest who had vices of his own. Years go by, and Elisa's family can find only false leads.

Tra passione e fanatismo, la violenza nelle curve e i legami segreti con le organizzazioni mafiose. Un fenomeno come quello degli ultrà in Italia non ha eguali nel resto dEuropa. Organizzati e violenti, molti di questi gruppi si sono trasformati negli anni in vere e proprie bande criminali, coinvolte in episodi di bagarinaggio, spaccio di droga e omicidi. Come accade per gli hooligan in Inghilterra e i club di motociclisti americani, spesso la criminalità organizzata o l'ultradestra si sovrappongono agli ultrà.