Italian football's new anti-racism campaign will use the friendly against England in Turin on Tuesday as the focus of its efforts to change attitudes in a country that has an uncomfortable history of race relations in the game.
The Italian campaign is being headed by Fiona May, the English-born former Olympic long-jumper who chose to represent Italy after marrying an Italian, and she admits she has a tough challenge.
May was appointed by the Italian FA's controversial president Carlo Tavecchio, the 71-year-old who was banned from all football activities for six months in November after referring to "eating bananas" when discussing foreign players.
Since then, former Italy coach Arrigo Sacchi caused a storm in February by saying there were "too many black players, even in the youth teams" in Italy, while racist abuse of players by extremist fans is relatively commonplace compared to the UK - Liverpool's Mario Balotelli was even subjected to racial insults while training for Italy at the Italian FA's (FIGC) training centre in Coverciano before the World Cup last year.
May admits she had to think long and hard before taking on the "daunting" task of heading the Italian FA's anti-racism committee in September last year, but has taken heart from the response to the recent launch of a 20-month campaign.
She told Press Association Sport: "I didn't accept it straight away - it was a pretty daunting task, but I do like a challenge and felt it was important to show a bit of courage.
"There was nothing existing, we have to start from scratch and the main thrust is to target youngsters, the next generation."
May's campaign is called 'Racists? Ugly race (...and we don't want them in our stadiums)'. It is holding 20 events in 20 months in 20 different cities across Italy, and the second of these takes place in Turin on Monday ahead of the England game. The first involved more than 2,000 young people in Florence, May's adopted home city.
The Italian media has had a reputation for ignoring racist incidents in its football, but May believes that has changed, shown by the coverage given to the Tavecchio and Sacchi remarks, as well as the actions of Kevin-Prince Boateng who led his AC Milan team-mates off the pitch after being abused in a friendly. Even so, Sacchi's comments in particular were hard for May to take.
"I was shocked and disappointed - he's a big name in Italy and it didn't exactly help our cause," she added.
The events around the Italy v England match will mainly target registered players aged between 10 and 18, and will include educational programmes in regional schools, a talk show targeted at teenagers plus a social media campaign.
Juventus and Torino have both promised one first-team player to take part in the events as well as local politicians in Turin.
May, who was raised in Derby and is still a keen Rams fan, admits all those efforts will seem a waste of time if England players are on the receiving end of racist abuse from Italian fans on Tuesday.
She said: "I can't say it's not going to happen, but I really hope not - and we know FIFA and UEFA are now watching these matches very, very closely."
May, 45, who has become a well-known actress after retiring from competition, also hopes Italy will learn from Britain that part of the key to eradicating racist abuse is through legislation - Italian anti-racism laws are nowhere near as tough as they are in the UK.
"The legislation has to change, has to be stronger," May said. "But at least we are doing something now and slowly but surely I believe it's changing."
Source: PA
