Milan-Como in Australia: Como ultras slam modern football | OneFootball

There is no shortage of controversy surrounding the decision to play Milan-Como, a match valid for the twenty-fourth round of the Serie A championship, in Australia, specifically at the Perth stadium. Just a few hours ago, the official statement from the Curva Lariana was released, expressing all their disappointment regarding the choice to play a league match on the other side of the world.

Milan-Como in Australia, the harsh statement from the Como ultras: “This football does not represent us”

This is the statement from the Lariani: “UEFA has given the green light: Milan-Como in Perth, Australia. Here is yet another demonstration that this football is no longer popular. People no longer matter, fans no longer matter, passion no longer matters. Only money matters. A match that should belong to those who live in the stands, to those who travel miles, to those who sacrifice every Sunday, is taken away and turned into a show on the other side of the world. For whom? For sponsors, TV, economic interests. Certainly not for the fans. This is not football. It’s business. It’s a spectacle packaged for those watching from a screen, light years away from what happens in the stands. Real football is in the curves, in the squares, in the cities, not in UEFA’s skyscrapers.

In Italy, football is viscerally tied to the territory. We are a parochial country by nature, where every city, every province, every neighborhood proudly defends its own identity. Milan-Como is the clash between two Lombard realities, two stories that intersect between lake and metropolis. What sense does it make to play it 14,000 km away? Milan-Como in Perth is the snapshot of a rotten system: matches sold as tourist packages, identity and history trampled in the name of profit. The football we knew, the one that belonged to everyone, no longer exists.

WE SAY IT CLEARLY: THIS DOES NOT BELONG TO US. THIS IS NOT OUR FOOTBALL. As long as there are curves that resist, as long as there is someone to shout that the ball belongs to the people and not to the merchants, then they have not completely won. But let’s not kid ourselves: every time we accept in silence, they take a step forward. Football was born popular, and popular it must remain. Everything else is just business disguised as passion.”

Vincenzo Schiavo

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This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇮🇹 here.