Italian soccer has been roiled by protests after Nazi symbols were waved at a weekend match at the Olympic Stadium. Got Mit Uns, the SS motto, was one of the slogans unfurled by Roma fans before a 3-0 win against Livorno.
Swastikas, pictures of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and Celtic crosses - the latest symbol adopted by ultra-rightists - also appeared in the Roma end of the stadium along with a banner saying Lazio And Livorno, Same Initials Same Oven.
Politicians from both sides of the fence said the referee and the police should have stopped the match to allow the banners to be removed. Opposition MPs claimed the incident was evidence that a recent government crackdown on hooliganism had failed.
Italy's biggest-selling sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, said the "exhibition at the Olimpico makes your flesh crawl, especially as it came just two days after Holocaust Remembrance Day."
"Something must be done to enable police to get these banners down quickly," it said.
Caught on the defensive after this latest instance of crowd extremism, Italian Soccer Federation chief Franco Carraro said: "There are no more laws that can be passed, the rules are already in place. The police could and should have stopped the match."
Representatives of Rome's Jewish community lodged an official complaint with police on Monday.
A spokesman added: "Why didn't the VIPs in the hospitality stand do something about it? They could have stood up and protested." Rome police chief Achille Serra said that stopping the match to remove such banners might have sparked hooligan violence.
"You have to weigh these things carefully. The crowd might have reacted, forcing the police to react and sparking a riot," he said. Under a law passed two years ago, police can confiscate banners that incite racial or political hatred.
But the law has been applied patchily for fear of violent consequences.
However, several commentators said Monday that the Roma incident could be the last straw. They said the law was likely to be applied stringently from now on. Until recent years Roma's hardcore fans were thought to be radically lefist, like those of Livorno.
But they have since come to rival the fans of cross-city rivals Lazio in the expression of rightist extremism.
Lazio has been repeatedly fined for racist and rightist banners while its captain Paolo Di Canio has sparked outrage with Fascist salutes - notably against Livorno, whose fans regularly exhibit hammer and sickle banners. Roma now faces disciplinary action, almost certainly a ban on fans attending home matches for a number of games. Many Roma players say it is unfair for all the fans to pay for the actions of an extremist fringe.
"You're just encouraging them when you pay so much attention to their cretinous acts," said midfielder Damiano Tommasi.
"The banners should have been brought down, that's all."
Roma issued a statement saying it felt "offended" and pledging to "work to change the climate" inside the stadium. The club also asked TV channels not to put the spotlight on such banners.
Asked how the banners could have got into the stadium despite tighter turnstile checks, police chief Serra said: They bring in some things in their underwear. We can't start strip-searching them." Police have opened an investigation into the case and
have asked for the electronic records of seat numbers in a bid to trace the culprits.
