Existential Damage

Once again, a club has been hijacked by the actions of a fan or group of fans and forced to pay, in this case 1,500 Euros to a fan in Napoli, who was "damaged" by banners in a Napol v Inter Milan match at the Guiseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan last October. The banners in question were a response to a work stoppage organized by the Camorra-run, garbage collectors who were in disagreement with landfill operators and the government, causing a build-up of refuse in the streets of Napoli. They mentioned Naples as the "sewer of Italy", another one that called residents "cholera sufferers" and others that said, "Neapolitans have got tuberculosis". The anonymous fan was left "indignant and deeply hurt" and sued the club for "existential damage" with the verdict coming in his favor this week despite the clubs arguing that the courts had no jjurisdiction. The club and the supporters had already been sited by the league, but the Italian courts had the ultimate say.

I won't get into much of a value judgment on what was said. The banners were pretty idiotic and petty. It's typical of the usual North/South animosities that have been in place and certainly not the first salvo in such a highly charged rivalry; one that has decades of history between the two clubs and the two groups of supporters. I also won't go into the legalities, as the details of Italian law and how it differs from U.S. law is ultimately beyond me, and other countries do have different definitions of personal freedom, but in my opinion, "what sort of damage exactly was done?" Was this an isolated incident? Was this any different from the scores of other times that Northern fans have reaped scorn at Southerners in the past? Lastly, will it ultimately correct the behavior in question?

I don't think so really. I'm all for correcting past wrongs and solving this ethnic problem but this is not the

time nor the case to do that with. This smacks of one opportunistic fan sticking it to the establishment and while I usually side with guys like him in these cases, I just can't get by the fact that he was left with "existential damages" from reading a series of banners.

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