The website of The Liverpool Daily Post and Echo today included an article regarding threats of violence from Liverpool "supporters" against Italian Supporters. The article itself – Website threats for Turin match – quoted some of the threats, which were on a forum on the "Liverpool Urchins" web-site.
We’ve already published stories relating to threats of violence from Italian Ultras, and it seems that there are more problems to come if the unidentified operators of this site are to be believed. The Liverpool Echo article says that, "The Urchins website reads: ‘Liverpool Urchins wil tear Turin up.’ The Urchins are rumoured to be travelling in large numbers to Turin via Milan.
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The Echo also quotes Eugenio Forzajuve, from the Juventus Club London, who gives the following advice: "I would urge all Liverpool fans who want to go to Delle Alpi in Turin, please do but with a organized tour with your club. I had a confrontation with a few of these morons called black and white fighters at the match on Tuesday. They said that when Liverpool fans come to Turin they will make sure that they bleed. How can we put this to rest when we have idiots like that out there?"
There’s also a response from the LFC Supporters’ Club chairman, Richard Pedder, who says: "Comments like this will always be made. We have just got to ignore them. The main focus should be on the game. If the Liverpool fans go on organised trips there is going to be a large police presence. They are going to ship them out of the city and bring them back in the early evening. "
We’ve also come across a site that gives extensive information and history on the Black and White Fighters. It seems from reading this site that different groups of Ultras fight for power at Juve, and that the current leaders of the Ultras are a group called "Drughi". The leader of this group, according to the site, was released from prison this year after some time in prison:
"Dino was a former higly respected ultra who was arrested in 1989 for armed robbery and murder. The banner was a sign of respect and Dino was released in 2005 and will take charge of the supportergroup Drughi. It was a strange coincidence that the former great leader Dino was released from prison almost at the same time as the new leaders of Fighters were banned from all stadiums. Was the group Fighters dissolved because Dino returned or because their leaders were arrested? What would have happened if the current leaders of Fighters hadn’t been banned? Would Dino with his group Drughi still have taken control of La Curva Scirea? Maybe we will never know the truth."
Of course the internet is a place for people to say pretty much what they want in more anonymous ways than before – but it’s still hoped that the authorities in the UK and Italy are watching this closely.
Update. We said earlier that the national press hadn’t picked up on this, but we missed a story from Sunday’s Observer – available here.