L'Osservatorio Nazionale sulle Manifestazioni Sportive

Colosseum Seminar

The national Authorities of many European countries have had - also recently - grievous episodes of violence relating to sports events to reckon with, mainly in the football field.

The wound received by the Italian football system because of the serious incidents of Catania where a State Police officer lost his life still hurts and it can not be forgotten that the manager of an amateur team was killed by the madness of spectators and football players in a small local football field.

Confronted with this umpteenth emergency the Italian Government has adopted very stringent rules aimed at returning football to true supporters and families through the modernization of management models of football events. In this modernization path the stewards have a fundamental role.

The reason why Italy decided to resort to the European community is both to study the experiences of countries that
have already been using stewards for years and to create the
conditions for the spreading of said positive practices in all EU
countries.

The steward issue will be discussed within the international seminar hosted by Italy at the Police Institute for Advanced Studies from 7 to 9 October 2007. It will be a two-day conference aimed at establishing the conditions for an exchange of ideas at international level among representatives of the Union governments, the FIFA and the UEFA by focusing on good practices and criticalities, to be spread through the Community channels.