With Zola apologists quoting Brooking and Dicks as if they are all knowing footballing gurus because they have supported Zola, it is interesting to see that Di Canio has effectively backed the dismissal of his Italian compatriot.
You might have expected Paolo to line up behind Zola, but far from it. Instead, the 41 year old former striker said: "The new chairmen David Gold and David Sullivan are trying to do their best because they are also West Ham supporters. So now the fans can be sure that everything they do is for the best of the team." Well, if Paolo says it, then he must be right surely?
Who knows better, Paolo Di Canio or a bunch of no mark fans who have never kicked a ball in the Premiership? Di Canio is a Claret and Blue god so everything he says must be true, surely? Dear God, such is the guy's love of West Ham that he has put the club above his own interests, ruling himself out of the running for the job because he is not yet ready to take it on! I bet Sullivan & Gold are panicking now, with their plans to appoint the Italian hot head in utter and complete disarray!
What an endorsement as well for Sullivan and Gold! I wonder why Paolo rates them so highly? Maybe it is because they act like total fascists? Perhaps somebody ought to whisper in Paolo's ear that Gold is Jewish!
Paolo for christ sake, P A O L O! I don't know why, but the so frequent mistake really irritates me. Particularly coming from our own.
ReplyDelete~ Neil
LOL Sorry. I've had a looonnnggg day! I'll correct it!
ReplyDeleteWhilst we are about it, how do you spell Nazi?
ReplyDeleteHF,
ReplyDeleteHe also said that it would be a dream to go back there one day. G&S may still be owners that day, so he'd have been foolish to "line up behind Zola" whilst saying he wanted the job wouldn't he?
You have created something that did not exist.
HF.....As much as I admire the great Paolo Di Canio, don't you think you could have used a shot of him wearing a West Ham shirt in his pomp, rather than display him performing THAT obscene gesture?!! Stamp it out mate!
ReplyDeleteHF is a no mark fans who have never kicked a ball in the Premiership
ReplyDeleteThat is the point Shaun, that is why the pic was chosen. He should never be allowed near the club again. Great footballer, awful man. At least Zola, for all his incompetence, is a lovely guy!
ReplyDeleteIrony Stani, irony! Who gives a toss what Brooking, Dicks or Di Canio think? Sullivan and Gold are in charge! Do you think, after that Nazi salute, the Jewish Gold would EVER consider appointing PDC? If Di Canio thinks he can soft soap his way into the job into the future, he has another think coming!
HF, Don't get me wrong...the gesture contained in the image is what I object to...the individual making it, Paolo Di Canio, I don't! I object to it because of it's close similarity to what has become accepted as that of the 'Nazis' and the racist connotations associated with it. PDC is no 'Nazi'! It paints him in a bad light, and he has apologised but maintains that it is a Roman salute, which of course, historically, it is!
ReplyDeleteI don't think David Gold considers Di Canio a 'Nazi' for one second either...would he have alowed Di Canio's appearance at Tony Carr's game if he did? Sure, David Gold's heritage is Jewish, but he's an Englishman by birth, born in Stepney!
...and I reckon MOST West Ham fans do 'give a toss', as you put it, what SIR Trevor Brooking, Julian Dicks AND Paolo Di Canio think...because those 3 individuals saw fit to don the claret n blue shirt with great pride a grand total of 1069 times!!
Shaun, get real. The incident resulted in questions in the Italian Parliament and Di Canio was forced to apologise - otherwise his career was over. The Nazi salute was made to the Lazio "Ultras", a group with established and proven fascist and racist links. A mate of mine who is Asian made the mistake of going to a Lazio game. He and three white friends had to leave the ground for fear of their lives. Have you ever been to an Italian league game? I have. It is ugly, very, very ugly indeed. These people are politically and racially motivated and Di Canio knew full well what he was doing. It wasn't a one off, he has a tatoo too. Look at his face in that picture. Animal, bloody animal. Apologies aren't enough, too many people have died because of facism and that salute and Di Canio is not a complete idiot, he knows his history. Just because he was a great player for our club does not mean he is a worthy person. He isn't.
ReplyDeleteAnd Shaun, Brooking is a West Ham great but so what? He, like Zola, wants to be nice to everybody. Di Canio and Dicks were both mercenaries who were well remunerated for playing for the club. Dicks was happy to join Liverpool wasn't he?
ReplyDeleteHF... I AM a realist and if I was any more laid back about stuff, I'd be an astronomer!
ReplyDeleteI'm not going to enter into any political exchanges on a football blog...it just ain't worth it!
However, a little bell is ringing and is telling me that questions WERE asked in the Italian Parliament over a similar salute...by a female Italian politician! Maybe her name was Paula?? Di Canio has not only apologised for causing offence, but has actually met with Italian survivors of the Nazi regime! He has a tattoo yeah. He is heavily tattooed in fact! But there is no swastika...the tattoo reads 'DUX', which is Latin for 'Il Duce', referring to Mussolini, whom he greatly admired.
You have your opinion of him and I have mine! I abhor racism, and I admire the guy because the facts speak for themselves! He is no 'Nazi'! He is no politician! He's a football player, and a very good one at that!
...and yeah Sir Trevor is a really nice guy...his disciplinary record for West Ham shows that! ...but let's not get into player (or Manager) remuneration as we all know that money talks...your mates Gold and Sullivan will tell you that!
Shaun, who did Mussolini stand side by side with? What happened Italian Jews whilst Il Duce was the fascist ruler of Italy? Have you been to Auswitchz? Do you know how many Italians were exterminated in that camp alone? Di Canio respects Mussolini but isn't a Nazi? Wow. Take off those Claret and Blue goggles mate!
ReplyDelete“Paolo Di Canio could face disciplinary action from Fifa after he performed a fascist salute during a game between Lazio and Juventus last Saturday.Di Canio, the former West Ham striker who made a similar gesture at Livorno fans the previous weekend, was given a one-match ban by the Italian Football Federation, who have been ordered by Fifa to hand over files on the incident. A Fifa statement said that it "wishes to determine the extent to which Di Canio's racist gestures violated not only the Fifa Code of Ethics, which came into force in 2004, but also the relevant disciplinary provisions". It was the third time this year that Di Canio had made the fascist gesture. In March, he was fined £7,000 for giving a Nazi salute at the end of the Rome derby, though Di Canio claimed the gesture "dates back to ancient Rome and it has nothing to do with a racist ideology".
ReplyDeleteShaka Hislop has been left deeply upset by his former team-mate Paolo Di Canio's controversial fascist salutes and is shocked that the Lazio forward has resorted to such actions playing in Italy. Hislop won the Professional Football Association's Special Merit Award last season for his involvement in the Kick out Racism campaign in football. So it came as a big shock when Hislop saw his former West Ham team-mate Di Canio giving the Lazio supporters a fascist gesture when he was substituted against Juventus last Sunday. Hislop forged a close relationship with the maverick striker when the two played together at Upton Park in the late Nineties and could never have envisaged becoming friends with someone who has now made two sickening salutes inside the space of 10 days. Di Canio is already under investigation for making the first gesture in the previous week's match against Livorno. And he has been fined £7,000 and banned for one game for his latest actions. Hislop said: "I am very disappointed by it. I was speaking to someone at West Ham about it and Paolo never impressed me as that kind of person when he was here. We got on very well together. He got on well with my wife and kids and to see him make the headlines for his actions disappoints me greatly. Firstly as a footballer, what those gestures mean and the wide effect of it. Paolo was someone I considered a friend and I really liked him a lot so I am very disappointed by this. I feel disheartened by all of it. It is one thing seeing somebody doing it and making a stand about it. But when it is someone who you felt was a friend - it has a much longer-lasting effect on you." Di Canio has always been an admirer of the late Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, but remains defiant that his actions are causing no harm.
ReplyDeleteFans of Italy's Lazio football club yesterday threatened to stage mass protests if Paolo Di Canio, the team's striker, is disciplined for celebrating a win over Roma with a Fascist salute. Fans of Italy's Lazio football club yesterday threatened to stage mass protests if Paolo Di Canio, the team's striker, is disciplined for celebrating a win over Roma with a Fascist salute.National football federation officials opened an inquiry after Di Canio, 35, gave the straight-armed, flat-handed gesture, known since the rule of the Second World War dictator Benito Mussolini as a "Roman salute" at the end of Thursday evening's derby game in which Lazio beat Roma 3-1. The forward, who earned a reputation for his erratic temperament while playing for West Ham, denied there was political significance in the sinister greeting captured on photographs published around Italy."I am a professional footballer and my celebrations had nothing to do with political behaviour of any kind," he told Gazzetta dello Sport. Lazio fans known as "Ultras" long have been notorious for their neo-Fascist tendencies and famous supporters include Daniela Fini, the wife of the Italian Foreign Minister, Gianfranco Fini, who heads the "post-Fascist" National Alliance party founded by former members of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a grouping led by former blackshirts from Mussolini's totalitarian regime. A spokesman for the most uncompromising Ultras, the so-called Irriducibili, Fabrizio Toffolo, claimed that left-wing players such as Cristiano Lucarelli, a Livorno striker, made clenched-fist salutes during matches with impunity. "If Di Canio is disciplined, there will be 30,000 of us demonstrating outside the football league offices," he told Il Messaggero. Encouraging Fascism is a crime under Italian law. A club statement also rallied behind the striker, saying the controversy showed that Roma supporters are bad losers. "The result on the field was well deserved and celebrations by players and fans were absolutely legitimate," a Lazio statement said. Di Canio has the word dux, the latin term from which Mussolini styled himself Duce (leader), tattooed on his arm. In an autobiography, he said he was fascinated by the dictator, whom he called "basically a very principled, ethical individual". Alessandra Mussolini, the dictator's granddaughter who recently left the National Alliance to start a new far-right party, said she approved of the salute. "How nice that Roman salute was, it delighted me so much. I shall write him a thank- you note." Among those to disagree, however, was Andrea Della Valle, president of first division club Fiorentina, who Lazio defeated yesterday. "Every city would like to have a player with talent like his, but Di Canio went too far; I would not have accepted such an attitude. He should be careful, there are youngsters who will follow his example."
ReplyDeleteHF... You are insulting my intelligence if you think you need to spoonfeed me history mate! First and foremost...the holocaust was and remains horrific to this day! Words can't describe it! One doesn't need to visit the camps to understand that!
ReplyDeleteI dunno...first politics, now history?! I've already perused the well-documented articles that you saw fit to copy and paste in support of your 'point'...which seems that Di Canio is an awful animalistic nasty 'Nazi'!
I have already stated in my first comment that I find the similarity to the symbolism the gesture represents offensive...so why not just remove it eh?! Simple...take it off!!
I don't understand your point. How can you find the picture offensive yet defend the man who made it? Hopefully younger readers who do not know about the incident will understand better now why Di Canio will never manage West Ham; indeed why he will probably never manage a top club. How can you claim that Di Canio is not a Nazi when he has a tatoo in tribute to Mussolini? History isn't history Shaun, the present is simply a ripple caused by rocks thrown into the pond of the past. How about Di Canio taking off that tatoo? Won't do it, will he? How about he has a tatoo reading 7500 Italian Jews exterminated in Auschwitz? It is true that Mussolini refused to cooperate fully in the persecution of Jews and resisted transportation until the Nazi invasion of Italy, but anti Jewish ordinances instigated by Mussolini facilitated the transportations after 1943. Italian fascists were, and remain, racist. The Ultras at Lazio are appallingly racist.
ReplyDelete