A group of football fans – supporters of Serie A club Lazio – have put up a banner reading “Honor to Benito Mussolini” and performed fascist salutes in Milan ahead of a major Italian Cup match on Wednesday.
A video shared on social media shows the hardcore Lazio ultras, also known as “Irriducibili,” doing the fascist salutes.
The banner was hung near Piazzale Loreto, the square in Milan where the Italian dictator’s dead body was hung upside down in 1945 after his execution along with those of his mistress Claretta Petacci and other high-ranking fascists, Ansa news agency reports.
The episode took place one day ahead of Liberation day, a public holiday in which Italians celebrate the end of Nazi-fascism.
Neither Lazio, Lega Serie A or the Italian Football Federation have commented on the incident yet, but the head of the Milan chapter of ANPI Roberto Cenati, the national partisans association, called the episode “a crazy thing,” Ansa reports.
Cenati added that a member of the association contacted him saying there were about 70 people singing fascist chants and doing Roman salutes.
The Lazio fans were in the northern Italian city to watch their team play AC Milan in the second leg of Italian Cup semifinal at the San Siro. The first leg finished 0-0.