Italy's clubs struggling in the grip of the ultras

ROME, Feb 4 (Reuters) The president of Serie A side Catania has little doubt who was behind the violence that led to the death of a policeman during a match against Palermo on Friday.

''For three years we have been held hostage by the ultras because we never bowed to make compromises with certain people, and we never will. But alone we can do very little,'' Antonino Pulvirenti was quoted as saying in Sunday's La Gazzetta dello Sport.

''I'm going to leave Catania. I can't go straight away, but as soon as the situation returns to normal I'm going to pull out. We have arrived at an absolute low point.'' He might have been speaking on behalf on many presidents across Italy, whose complaints of being subjected to intimidation, extortion and death threats are considered a normal part of being in charge of a football club.

A one-off visit to an Italian match might leave the spectator with an agreeable impression of Italy's hardcore ultra fans, who choreograph much of the noise and colour that liven up the games.

Their presence, however, has turned some parts of Italy's stadiums into no-go zones for the police, and the frightening power they exert over clubs was demonstrated in the Rome derby between AS Roma and Lazio in April 2004.

The build-up to the match was marred by violence, and as play got underway a false rumour spread that a boy had been knocked down and killed by a police car outside the Olympic Stadium.

Anger built slowly through the first half and came to a head early in the second when three men scaled the barrier separating the south stand, which is occupied by Roma's ultras, and walked on to the pitch, bringing play to a halt.

RUNNING BATTLES Nobody stopped them or questioned their right to be there.

They spoke briefly to Roma captain Francesco Totti, then the match was suspended and the ultras of both teams slipped out of the stadium to fight running battles with the police outside.

In the days that followed, it was reported that the rumour had been invented simply to stir up ill-feeling against the police.

Italy's ultra groups are not loose affiliations of thugs. Many are run like businesses and make money from merchandising, selling T-shirts and scarves outside the country's stadiums.

They are often politicised, most to the far right, and have ready access to the pyrotechnic devices that create havoc in the stadiums through companies like Torcida International Fans Organisation (www.tifo.it), a Turin-based website that sells flares, smoke-bombs, and giant fire-crackers.

The home-made bomb that killed 38-year-old policeman Filippo Raciti during Palermo v Catania on Friday was something more sinister,its purpose not display but to maim or kill.

A Catania season-ticket holder who was at the match, 31-year-old lawyer Damiano Ruttino, suggested that the violence was premeditated.

''They threw an industrial quantity of paper bombs, which had probably been hidden inside the stadium several days before (the match),'' he said, describing how fans fought police inside the stadium.

Catania prosecutor Renato Papa said the target was the police.

''It wasn't a case of Catania against Palermo, but of certain people against the police,'' he said. ''Here we are dealing with actions whose direct objective is to strike at the forces of order.'' What to do about the ultras is the now the subject of wide debate.

The Italian Football Federation's suspension of play will only postpone further acts of violence.

''I used to ban my family from coming to watch AC Milan against Juventus,'' said former Juve defender Lilian Thuram, who left for Barcelona at the start of this season.

''The suspension will not make the hooligans reflect on their behaviour.'' Modernising Italy's old-fashioned stadiums will not solve the problem if the same people return to fill them.

After Friday's tragedy many Italians are coming to believe that the time has come to crack down on the ultras - though they run the risk of turning the country's stadiums into virtual battle zones.

REUTERS SAM BD1925