Battle of Italian football supporters in Tuscany: injured and closed highway | Abroad

About three hundred supporters of AS Roma and Napoli fought out their long-standing feud this afternoon on the Italian A1, the highway that runs from Milan to Rome. The Roma supporters were on their way to Milan, where their club will play against AC Milan. Napoli will face Sampdoria in Genoa tonight.

According to the police, Napoli supporters were waiting for the Romanisti at a gas station near Arezzo, Tuscany. Although the police were present in large numbers at the gas station, the hard core of Napoli managed to pelt the supporters from Rome. Several AS Roma supporters stopped their cars on the highway to get a story. It resulted in a big brawl. According to eyewitnesses, the hooligans attacked each other with sticks and threw stones and fireworks. There have been several minor injuries; one AS Roma supporter had to be treated in hospital for his injuries.

The highway was closed for a long time because of the brawl. There was a traffic jam of about thirteen kilometers to the north, on this black Sunday when many Italians return from their Christmas holidays.

The same gas station near Arezzo was also the scene of fights between football supporters in 2007. Then the hard cores of Juventus and Lazio Roma attacked each other. One of the supporters was then killed by a police bullet.

The hard cores of Napoli and AS Roma have been at each other’s lives for some time. Riots broke out in 2014 when Napoli played the final of the Italian Cup against Fiorentina in the Olympic Stadium. The Neapolitan supporters were then met by AS Roma hooligans. Young Neapolitan Ciro Esposito was injured in a shooting. He died in hospital a month later.