Italy indefinitely suspended the country's international and domestic soccer matches last night after a policeman was killed during clashes at a derby game between Sicilian clubs Catania and Palermo, authorities said.
Rioters and police clash in Catania last night. Reuters.
The 38-year-old police officer died shortly after a rioter tossed an explosive into his car, outside the Serie A match in Catania, police said. The death was the second in little over a week connected to an Italian soccer game.
About 100 people were wounded, between officers and fans, in clashes led by hooded rioters who hurled fireworks and lashed out at police with makeshift weapons. Police said they arrested nine people and had detained 23 others.
The latest bloodshed stunned a nation that just last summer triumphantly celebrated their World Cup victory in Germany, and the government called a high-level crisis meeting for Monday to hammer out emergency measures to halt the violence.
"We must send a clear message that we must stop the kind of degeneration of sport that unfortunately happens so often," Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said in a statement.
The Italian soccer federation (FIGC) quickly declared that all the weekend's matches were suspended, then clarified that the suspension was indefinite and that it also applied to the national team.
Italy had been scheduled to welcome Romania for a friendly on Wednesday. The world champions are
Mayor of Catania Umberto Scapagnini
due to host Scotland in a Euro 2008 qualifier on March 28th. They are third in Group B two points behind the Scots and France.
"We can't continue to go on like this," said FIGC's extraordinary commissioner Luca Pancalli. "Italian soccer will stop. And it will stop until we identify a road, serious and drastic, to allow the possibility of resuming the championships."
Mr Pancalli said the emergency meeting on Monday with the interior and sports ministers must identify new measures, "otherwise we won't start again".
Earlier this week, he had threatened to halt the country's championships after violence last weekend also left one man dead. An official of amateur league club Sammartinese died after being caught up in a fight at the end of a game.
Yesterday's match, which Palermo won 2-1, had been suspended for more than half-an-hour after smoke - partly from tear gas launched outside the stadium - made play impossible. But the most violent clashes came after the match.
Hundreds of angry rioters put up a fight for hours, as streams of fans fled down city streets to safety. The latest victim, policeman Filippo Raciti, who leaves behind a wife and two children, was in a "desperate situation" after a protester hurled an explosive at him inside his car, his doctor said.
Mr Raciti's heart stopped within a few minutes of his arrival at the hospital.
The Mayor of Catania, Umberto Scapagnini, was in the operating room during the 45 minutes of fruitless efforts to revive him. "There just are no words to say - to see a life cut down like this there are just no words," Mr Scapagnini said. "This is absurd, incomprehensible and absolutely unacceptable."