Lazio have appealed to UEFA to have their full stadium open for next month’s Europa League clash with Celtic.
Last week UEFA announced that part of the Curva Nord will be closed after racist actions from supporters during the Europa League match against Rennes.
Lazio are serial offenders on the issue with several sanctions applied by UEFA down the years having little impact on the actions of their fans.
There were concerns that the latest incident could result in a stadium closure but after avoiding that punishment the Italian side have appealed to UEFA to reopen the Curva Nord.
The Sun reports:
Lazio handed the case over to Italy’s crack General Investigations and Special Operations Division – a law enforcement agency charged with investigating terrorism and organised crime. And they responded by pinpointing 20 of their fans, with six of them under 16 years of age and have dished out bans.
Now Lazio will appeal to UEFA to reverse the decision to partially close the stadium because they have taken decisive action to root out the culprits. Lazio have also revealed they will closely be monitoring 1,500 of their own fans who will travel to Scotland this week for the tie against Celtic. UEFA have warned the Rome club that any repeat will see their entire stadium shut in future.
Having identified the racist element in their support Lazio are hardly likely to be congratulated by UEFA, the partial closure is due to past actions by supporters. With the racist element identified any future violations are bound to be dealt with harshly by UEFA.
Celtic have been given an allocation of 9,000 tickets for the trip to Rome, their biggest away European allocation for over a decade.
