Now the Italian soccer authorities have responded to the threat by announcing soccer matches will be suspended for up to 45 minutes if racist or offensive banners are displayed at stadiums.
Matches will then be scrapped if the banners are not removed within that time and teams whose fans are to blame will be penalised with automatic 2-0 defeats, soccer bosses said on Thursday.
"This is a very serious public order problem which soccer governing bodies, as always, are doing their utmost to counter," Italian Football Federation (FIGC) president Luciano Nizzola told a news conference.
The federation was responding to an Interior Ministry decree ordering the suspension of matches for as long as was necessary to remove offensive banners from the crowd.
The unprecedented move by the government came two days after Lazio fans held aloft a banner paying tribute to assassinated Serb warlord Arkan and a portrait of former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini at a match against Bari last Sunday.
The banners triggered widespread outrage but mixed opinions on how to deal with the problem.
Some, like AS Roma President Francesco Sensi, called for matches to be scrapped. Others, including Italy coach Dino Zoff, said that would only give racists on Italy's soccer terraces the publicity they craved.
The FIGC met on Thursday to discuss the practicalities of enforcing the decree. It stressed that any decision to halt a match would lie with an Interior Ministry official at the stadium rather than the match referee.
"Whenever the Interior Ministry official responsible for public order at each stadium considers that one or more of the banners displayed by fans constitutes an incitement or an apology for violence or racial discrimination...(he or she) will ask the referee to delay the start of the match or halt a match which is already in progress," the FIGC said in a statement.
"Forty-five minutes after the start of the suspension or after the scheduled kick-off the referee will call off the match (if the banners have not been removed)."
While European soccer continues to enjoy massive popularity racism remains a cloud over the sport in some territories. The issue may, primarily, be a social concern but there may be long-term commercial implications for the corporations who pour millions into the sport in sponsorship.
