ROME, Italy — The Italian football federation on Monday opened an investigation after supporters of second-division club Juve Stabia celebrated a goal scored by Benito Mussolini’s great-grandson with fascist salutes.
Romano Floriani Mussolini scored his first goal for the Serie B team in their 1-0 win at Cesena, with video footage showing fans shouting “Mussolini” with one arm outstretched.
“The federal prosecutor’s office (of the FIGC) will send a report on the incident… to the sports judge of Serie B for a ruling,” the FIGC said.
Floriani Mussolini, who came through Lazio’s academy, has played every league game for Juve Stabia this season on loan from the capital club.
His mother Alessandra, a former Italian and European MP, is the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator who ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 and who allied Italy with Nazi Germany in World War II.
From 1938, the Mussolini regime began stripping rights from Jews, banning them from public office, forbidding intermarriage, permitting the confiscation of their property, and eventually their internment.
Polémica en el fútbol italiano.
Romano Floriani Mussolini, bisnieto del dictador italiano, marca su primer gol como profesional para que el Juve Stabia gane 1-0 al Cesena en Serie B… y la grada de su equipo reacciona así.
El jugador de 21 años, cedido por la Lazio, explicó en… pic.twitter.com/G8Ey5vLXLF
— Soy Calcio (@SoyCalcio_) December 22, 2024
Under the dictator’s regime, which ran until his deposition in July 1943, more than 7,000 Italian Jewish men, women, and children were murdered in the Nazi death camps.
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