PADUA – «This morning (yesterday, ed) we met with the president of Calcio Padova, Francesco Peghin, and with the mayor Sergio Giordani to analyze what happened and adopt those measures that prevent, even in residual cases, an invasion that arises from someone who climbs and finds the door. He opens it and opens it.”
The door remained open
Because everything, according to the analysis of police commissioner Marco Odorisio, revolves around a small detail that no one, until 8:50 p.m. on Tuesday and at half-time of the first leg of the Italian Cup final of Serie C between Padua and Catania, there was Note that The glass door on the north curve was not closed.. “If it had been closed and the steward had kept the key in his pocket as he should, we would not be here to talk about what happened but only about the result of the match,” examines the person in charge of public order, who yesterday morning at the police station announced that what happened on Tuesday afternoon is a point of no return and that, shortly, security in Euganeo will be reinforced. «Serpentine preselectors must be installed before turnstiles. and from now on those doors will be closed and attended by a butler with the key that – continues Odorisio – will be opened in case of need for immediate evacuation of spectators from a specific sector to the playing field.”
The police outside
The Digos agents recovered the sixty Catania fans who invaded the Euganeo promontory, targeting the Paduans in the East stand (a sector usually occupied by families and not by the ultras), stealing a banner (which was later returned) and the II Mobile. department, which arrived inside the stadium when the alert was issued from the control room: Three arrests on the field of play and another five yesterday (the news on page 11 of the national edition), as well as searches and seizures, a prelude to dozens and dozens of Daspo for the Etna ultras. «For years, the stadium devices have seen the police on the outside, taking care of all the phases of entry and exit of spectators – explains the commissioner – Inside, security is managed directly by the sports clubs. Our intervention yesterday was exceptional, in the face of an invasion of the field caused by a person who climbed and calmly opened a gate that should have been closed.” The police commissioner then gave applause to the local public: “In the afternoon there was no problems, the first fans arrived by train from Catania around 4 p.m. And also at the end of the match, although the Paduans could also have been provoked, they did not seek any contact.”
At the station
The long night after Padua-Catania, which left 8 agents injured (4 from Digos and 4 from the Mobile department) and the director Giuseppe Iorio, who fell ill during the invasion and was taken to Cardiology for a coronary angiography, continued afterwards at the station where police escorted about 150 Sicilian fans onto the train. Officers searched and identified each visiting supporter, seizing dozens of rigid flagpoles, as well as an equal number of smoke bombs and firecrackers. That is, those that were not used during the bombing of the Catania ultras in the stadium. Because although there was preventive filtering at the turnstiles, some members of the organized support of the red-blues managed to introduce smoke bombs in the northern corner Then he launched himself against the public with a white shield in the east stand: also in this case, according to directives from the Ministry of the Interior, control falls to the hostesses under the supervision of the police. And on Tuesday they also brought more than one smoke bomb.