Italian football club Lazio has been hit with a €50,000 fine after supporters placed anti-Semitic stickers of Jewish Holocaust victim Anne Frank around their shared stadium.
Fans of the Serie A club have avoided a stadium ban for the incident on October 22, which saw a cluster of supporters post up stickers of Anne Frank wearing the shirt of their rivals Roma.
However, the club, which currently sit third in the league, will have to pay €50,000 after the Italian Football Federation deemed the actions of at least 13 fans as having “a clear anti-Semitic intent, constituting discriminatory behavior.”
According to the disciplinary tribunal, chaired by Cesare Mastrocola, the stickers of the Holocaust victim were designed to “incite racial hatred” and mock rival fans. Lazio shares the Stadio Olimpico with bitter rivals Roma.
During the tribunal, it was acknowledged that the adhesives were hidden by fans on entry into the stadium, and were found by cleaning staff in the south stand of the Stadio Olimpico the day after a home match against Cagliari last year. Some thirteen ultras received bans because of the incident.
Extracts of Anne Frank’s famous diary were subsequently read out at Italian stadiums following the incident, while the football team players donned supportive t-shirts of the murdered Holocaust diarist.
“The President of the SS Lazio, Claudio Lotito, has decided that the team will take to the field, during the pre-match warm-up, at the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara of Bologna with an image of Anne Frank ... as evidence of the club’s commitment in combating all forms of racism and anti-Semitism,” read a club statement on October 24, 2017.
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