Wednesday,
March 14, 2007
Italians Finally Fall in Love with
The
ANNOTICO Report
Italian
Rugby players who were just names five weeks ago, have become recognisable public figures, stopped in the street for
autographs and spontaneously applauded by fellow travellers
The
growing disenchantment with football, on the back of last year's match-fixing
scandal and the death of a police officer in rioting at a Serie
A match early last month, has also played its part, putting rugby on a pedestal
as a sport that promotes values that soccer seems to have lost.
"
But
The financial incentives for Italian youngsters to choose rugby over football
also make it a tough challenge.Players in Italy's
Super 10 league earn an average of 50 000 a year, less than the #90 000
pounds their counterparts in England's rugby Premiership receive and a fraction
of the fees Serie A players can command.
I
order to develop domestic talent.
Italians Finally Fall
in Love with
James Eve
13 March 2007
After decades of indifference, soccer-mad
Their 23-20 win over
News of their success was splashed over the front pages of the country's
sporting press. La Gazzetta dello
Sport hailed the team as the "Lions of
Italy".
Inside the papers, there the players were again -- not just in news articles
but also in adverts for coffee and clothes, and promoting a Roman radio
station.
Players who were just names in a match report five weeks ago have become recognisable public figures, stopped in the street for
autographs and spontaneously applauded by fellow travellers
at Rome's Fiumicino airport when they returned from
their win over Scotland two weeks ago - their first away success since joining
the competition seven years ago.
But it is not just results on the pitch that have raised rugby's profile in
Promotes values
The growing disenchantment with football, on the back of last year's
match-fixing scandal and the death of a police officer in rioting at a Serie A match early last month, has also played its part,
putting rugby on a pedestal as a sport that promotes values that soccer seems
to have lost.
"Rugby is a hard sport that represents without doubt the real sporting
values of fair play and respect for one's opponent that should exist in all
sporting disciplines," said
Melandri was one of the ministers who last month
hammered out the new anti-hooligan plan designed to crack down on violence at
the country's football grounds.
"By winning in
"But above all I want to underline how it has exported to the world the
ethical values of our sport."
Swapping songs
Italians also delighted in scenes around the Stadio Flaminio and throughout Rome as fans of both sides mixed
amicably, swapping songs and drinks -- a far cry from the poisonous atmosphere
that exists at many of the nation's big soccer occasions.
For now,
Here, warns scrumhalf Alessandro Troncon,
"
"In
"In
The financial incentives for Italian youngsters to choose rugby over football
also make it a tough challenge.
Players in the country's Super 10 league earn an average of 50 000 a year,
less than the #90 000 pounds their counterparts in
Italian rugby's reliance on the cramped and old-fashioned Flaminio
as a stage for its most important games has also been a bone of contention --
and one that some Italians feel is hindering the game's progress.
"We need the
"We need to feel that we are all part of one, big project with the
clubs." -- Reuters
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