Soccer team that mourned mobster banned
Players wore black arm-bands for 'Ndrangheta boss
18 March, 16:15
(ANSA) - San Luca, March 18 - The Italian Soccer Federation
on Thursday banned a team in a Calabrian mafia fief who played
with black arm-bands after the death of a boss.San Luca is a small town which gained international headlines in August 2007 when an 18-year feud sparked by egg-throwing at a wedding culminated in a hit on six gangsters in the German town of Duisburg.
The San Luca team staged their mourning tribute after the death of a leader of one of the warring families, Antonio Pelle.
All 16 of the players who took the field in November were banned for two matches Thursday while three of the club's executives, Giuseppe Nirta, Giuseppe Strangio and Giuseppe Trimboli, received bans ranging from one month and five days to five months.
'Ndrangheta, which once lived in the shadow of its Neapolitan and Sicilian cousins Camorra and Cosa Nostra, has emerged as Italy's strongest mafia thanks to its dominance of the European cocaine trade and its unbreakable family ties.
Soccer homages to mafia bosses are not unusual in southern Italy and in October a Sicilian soccer club chairman who dedicated a victory to a Cosa Nostra suspect was banned for five years.
The club, Akragas Calcio from Agrigento, was docked a point in the 'Eccellenza' division.
On Thursday San Luca was docked three points in the Prima Categoria division.
The two categories are the lowest in Italian professional soccer, after Serie D.
photo: Antonio Pelle aka 'ntoni Gambazza
