Italy’s soccer authorities, reacting to an anti-Semitic outburst by Lazio fans, ordered stadiums on Tuesday to hold a minute’s silence at their next matches while a passage from the diary of Holocaust victim Anne Frank is read out.
Stickers of Anne Frank wearing the jersey of Lazio’s city rivals AS Roma were found on walls and bathrooms in a section of Rome’s Olympic Stadium used by Lazio supporters during their Serie A match against Cagliari on Sunday.
The incident was sharply criticised by Italian politicians and media, with President Sergio Mattarella calling it “inhuman and alarming for our country”.
At the next match in all Italy’s soccer divisions, a minute’s silence will be held “to condemn the recent episodes of anti-Semitism and to continue to remember the Holocaust,” the soccer federation said in a statement.
Read the article in The Age (Reuters).