Arms outstretched, the Tricolore and nostalgia for the 20-year period: when the far right turns its back on the Israeli national team

On September 8th, Israel vs. Italy , a qualifying match for the 2026 World Cup, was played in Hungary . There were those who wanted it to be scrapped. Those who had been calling for Israel's exclusion from the official sports circuit for months. And those who expected the Azzurri to protest. None of these "who"s were satisfied. And there are some reasons to be disappointed. Not because the boycott of the match's live TV broadcast didn't work (a 39.1% share on Rai1, the most watched event of the evening). Nor because the Azzurri didn't try a gesture à la Adriano Panatta (some will remember his red jersey at the Davis Cup, Santiago, Chile, 1976) and simply played. But because the only protest that arose from the stands was that of a small group of forty fans, the former "Ultras Italia," now reunited as the "Ragazzi con i Tricolori." They were the ones who turned their backs on the pitch during the Israeli national anthem and held up signs with the black word "Enough." The background, of course, was the Italian flag.

Meanwhile, for the return match, scheduled for October 14 in Udine, the "Show Israel the Red Card" movement , which brings together various teams, fan groups, and associations from around the world, is mobilizing. The rally will take place through the streets of the Friulian city on the day of the match between Italy and Israel. The protests are directed at FIFA , which is accused of normalizing what is happening in Gaza by failing to exclude Israel from official competitions.

But the group that led the protest on September 8th did not join this initiative. And the reasons are far from clear.

As reported by the sports publication Ultimo Uomo , this is a far-right group formed in the early 2000s. Truth be told, it's not a particularly large group: a couple of hundred at most, usually around forty. Turning their backs is a leitmotif among these ultras when it comes to matches against Israel: the Debrecen scenario was repeated identically in Budapest , in 2024, during another Azzurri match. And again: in 2008, during the match in Sofia between Bulgaria and Italy, they chanted hymns to Mussolini, organized a march, raised their right arm a bit too high , and were involved in violent clashes with the local police. Again, on September 5, 2016 , in Haifa, they displayed the Roman salute during another Israel-Italy match. Three of them (Bari ultras) were identified and searched: truncheons, clubs, and Nazi-fascist material were found in their homes.

They're the same people who opposed Mario Balotelli as captain and the "multiethnic national team" under Cesare Prandelli. Their more or less acceptable activities, moreover, are defended and supported even by center-right political and sports representatives .

The fans who turned their backs on the Israeli anthem

These "boys"' nostalgia for the twenty-year period is embodied in their gestures, chants, banners with the fasces font, and even, candidly, on their official page. "Better the sadness of a defeat than the shame of not having fought," reads a post dated May 18, 2022. A Mussolini slogan, with "weeping" instead of "sadness." If it had been an exam, it would have been called plagiarism.

The pantheon of Ultras Italia-Ragazzi with the Tricolore is clear. Their geographic reach is broad, with right-wing supporters from all over Italy, from Veneto to Puglia. They're few when it comes to following the national team, it's true, but they're not harmless.

At the Rimini Meeting, the Minister of Sport Andrea Abodi had recalled that "sport must unite". And he had therefore The idea of ​​excluding Israel from the sporting circuit has been rejected . One can debate the coherence and motivations behind wanting to unite some through sport and not others. But when the lack of sanctions is linked to similar repeated incidents, it's fair to ask: by whom is a space left vacant occupied, and how? This is one of the risks: that the neo-fascists' actions overshadow or even overlap, in public opinion, with demonstrations free from racial hatred. The October 14th demonstration in Udine will attempt to address this unwarranted synthesis of sports boycott and anti-Semitism .