Hello, I'm new member here. I've been reading this forum for a while now and decided to register. Plenty of interesting stuff here, big compliments to all the members who contributed to the forum's quality.

I'm from Eastern Europe but I follow Italian football quite a lot. I guess most of you Americans here aren't football ("soccer") fans so just few basic facts: in Naples, there is a club with one of the most passionate supporters in Europe, the city basically lives for the club. Napoli 'ultras' (organized group of hardcore fans) are known to be one of the most violent and 'crazy' in Europe. The club itself is quite successful and has a rich history (Maradona, the best player in football history played for them) that among other things also involves camorra-related scandals.


"The Camorra was thought to be closely involved with Napoli during the side’s glory days in the late 1980s when Argentinean superstar Diego Maradona led them to two Serie A titles. And when several Camorra members turned informant in the mid-1990s, it was revealed that the Mafia had thrown wild parties involving call girls for Napoli players.


A more serious allegation was that the team deliberately lost a Serie A, and therefore the championship, in 1990, at the behest of Camorra-controlled bookmakers.


Both Napoli and the Camorra suffered a downturn in fortunes for well over a decade. The soccer club experienced financial crisis and bankruptcy, and fell all the way down to the third-tier Serie C before bouncing back and claiming a place in this season’s Champions League, where it will face Chelsea in the round of 16 in February.


The Mafia group lost power when many of its senior members were jailed, but has since sought to reassert control over Naples and other parts of southern Italy, law enforcement officials say. Napoli’s return to soccer strength seems to have piqued the interest of Camorra and it retains close ties with many fans organizations.

Hard line fan groups, known as “ultras,” have issued threats of violence in an attempt to secure free tickets. After supporters caused severe damage to a train en route to a game in Rome in 2008, more than 200 of the people questioned were reported to have had criminal ties.

The Camorra’s interest runs deeper than free tickets and it is believed the organization wants to gain control of a share of the club’s profits in exchange for “protection,” a common Mafia racket."

http://sports.yahoo.com/soccer/news?slug..._lavezzi_010912


As far as the ultras are concerned, certain ties with the mob definitely exist. Back in 2008 there was a major incident where Napoli ultras smashed the train on their trip to Rome to an away game of their club:

http://italychronicles.com/rampaging-football-hooligans-and-mafia/

And here's a video of Napoli ultras arriving on an away game, they're lunatics, you don't want to mess with this crowd:

http://youtu.be/GQbetD231D8

I'm not sure about Sicilian ultras groups, as far as I know the ultras aren't strong there nowadays. Italian government took many measures agains football violence and ultras groups over the country are much less violent than they were in 80s or 90s, Napoli being the only exception. I guess that the Camorra can use violent ultras as some sort of "muscle" to intimidate the local club, which is currently one of the top European football clubs with tons of money and stars like Cavani and Hamšik, who are both worth around 40 million € or even more on the transfer market.