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11 months ago
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It’s now been more than a year since Simone Inzaghi’s Inter Milan has had a string of big performances. After winning the Supercoppa and the Coppa while playing in the Champions League final and securing 3rd place in Serie A last year, the Nerazzurri continue their success this season by dominating the championship debates with a first position locked almost without letup since the start of the campaign, while the Lombard club has already locked in its qualification for the round of 16 of C1. However, the whole paradox lies far from the lawns. If very little negative can be said about Inter Milan on the pitch, behind the scenes of the Nerazzurri have been experiencing turmoil for several months now. Between the eternally delayed sale, the multiple international lawsuits of the president and owner Steven Zhang and the numerous debts contracted, the managers of Biscione are having a hard time getting their heads above water and it is only getting worse…
And unfortunately, they are not helped by certain players outside the club. Indeed, several groups of ultras from the Curva Nord today find themselves in the midst of legal turmoil, to the point of causing collateral damage to Inter. According to information from the Italian investigative newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano, an unprecedented national investigation carried out by the Division of General Investigations and Special Operations (Digos) has shed light on the criminal anatomy behind the Curva Nord, the largest sector among the tifosi and ultras of the ‘Inter. In the sights of the investigating authorities is the businessman known as “Zio”, Vittorio Boiocchi. He was a convicted criminal who received a 26-year prison sentence for charges of theft, kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and criminal conspiracy. His influence permeated the ultra-interistists for a little over three years, from 2019 until his assassination on October 29, 2022.
Links with the ‘Ndrangheta!
Apart from his illegal activities, far from the sports sector, Vittorio Boiocchi is now accused of several misdeeds directly linked to Inter Milan. Released in May 2018 after three decades in prison, “Zio” is singled out for a series of suspicious activities. Among these, we find: illegal access to the stadium, boasting with the assumed complicity of certain Inter leaders, management of VIP cars in the stadium parking lot, investments in betting agencies, bank accounts, safes and relationships with high-ranking politicians. The leaders of the Nerazzurri, involved in the affair, were nevertheless not indicted because they were considered as injured parties by the prosecution, having been officially “victims of the threatening behavior of the ultras”. The investigation by the Milan public prosecutor’s office, still open, focused on the internal dynamics of the Curva Nord, with particular attention to the management imposed by Boiocchi. After his death, the leadership was changed, but individuals already linked to Zio remain involved in management. Control of the Curva Nord is now in the hands of a small group known as the “Magic Circle of Eight” who meet weekly. Among them, in addition to Bosetti and Beretta, there is also Jacopo Pedrazzoli, leader of the Irriducibili ultra group and member of the far-right movement Lealtà Azione. At the center of this complex legal intrigue also appears the association “We are Milano”, originally created to organize charitable events in collaboration with the Exodus community of the priest and activist, Don Antonio Mazzi.
However, according to the Digos survey, the reality is very different. It would ultimately be a legal facade used to include two MEPs in the Italian Parliament: Carlo Fidanza from Fratelli d’Italia (Giorgia Meloni’s party) and Silvia Sardone from Lega Nord. The aim was to offer Vittorio Boiocchi and his right-hand men greater credibility to facilitate contacts with the Inter management – given that football clubs cannot interact directly with the ultras. This association was therefore only one of the many branches of a criminal group established within the Curva Nord, having direct links with Giuseppe Caminiti who was responsible for managing the VIP parking at the Giuseppe-Meazza stadium. The latter is also close to Salvatore Papandrea, a drug trafficker in the ‘Ndrangheta mafia. The investigation also reveals that Caminiti was paid by the company Kiss and Fly, which is part of a consortium of companies having a management contract of one million euros with the company Mi-Stadio, divided equally between Inter Milan and AC Milan. The Mi-Stadio board of directors has seen an alternation of politicians and sons of politicians in recent years. How to communicate with certain Inter leaders and the requests made “follow a mafia-type logic” with “attempts at intimidation aimed at achieving illicit objectives”according to the Digos investigation report.
The silence and unease of Inter…
Even if Inter Milan is not directly incriminated, the club could well receive a negative domino effect from this affair, especially since the club has never really communicated on this subject. A deafening silence which does not work in favor of the club with 19 Scudetti and which greatly annoys the thousands of other innocent fans at the stadium: “We must maintain the presumption of innocence for everyone, for politicians and Inter leaders. Especially since it is specified that no Inter leader or politician is currently under investigation, unlike the Curva Nord. I’m not going to fall off my chair, Curves in general in Italy are unfortunately common. This especially concerns the leaders of the Ultras. because the young ultra who is 20 years old comes mainly for the match and the songs. I do not liken myself to this Curva, these are not my values. I am a moderate Inter supporter, I consider them too extreme in the way they act, support and speak. No one is under investigation at the club and if there are people to be sentenced, the courts will sentence them. I absolutely do not feel represented by this Curva and I do not want to be represented as an Inter supporter through this Curva.tells us Karim from the media The Beneamate on X dedicated to the news of the Lombard club.
It is true that Inter Milan’s Curva Nord is not its first media scandal. As a reminder, the ultras of this Meazza forum published an astonishing plea in 2019, after the monkey cries aimed at Romelu Lukakun, explaining that this was only a simple tool of destabilization. In 2022, an ultra from the Curva Nord was banned from the stadium for having forced certain supporters to leave the stand using violent means of intimidation, ten other ultra supporters still remain under investigation in this case: “I think it hasn’t gone far enough yet for the club to react. There was a paper relayed on Calcio e Finanza. The accusations are very serious but there have been no leaders under investigation. This is why the club says that there is no real desire to counter-attack, at least in the media. They are aware of this article. And in my opinion, the club’s communicators must think that it is better not to respond for the moment., Karim then concludes. In any case, the links between these Milanese ultras and the darkest sectors of Italian society will have to be highlighted a little more in the coming weeks until the convictions which should follow.
