Derby Della Capitale - Notable Incidents

Notable Incidents

Two extreme incidents in particular have left their mark on the history of this fixture. In 1979, Lazio fan Vincenzo Paparelli was hit in the eye and killed by a flare fired by a Roma fan from the opposite end of the stadium, becoming the first fatality in Italian football due to violence, and in 2004 an unprecedented event occurred when the Roma ultras forced the game to be suspended after spreading false rumors among the crowd that a child had been killed by the police prior to the beginning of the game.

The derby on March 21, 2004 was abandoned, four minutes into the second half, with the score tied at 0–0, when a riot broke out in the stands and the president of the Italian Football League, Adriano Galliani, ordered referee Roberto Rosetti to suspend the match. The riots, including literal exchanges of fireworks, began with the spreading of a rumour that a boy had been killed by a police car just outside the stadium. This story was spread to the players when three leaders of Roma's ultras walked onto the pitch to speak with Francesco Totti, the Roma captain. In fact, from last row of the stadium, some fans noticed in the square below a body covered with a white sheet.

Later, medics put the sheet explained that the boy had difficulty breathing, dangerously exacerbated by the air full of tear gas, and then the sheet was used as a filter. The denial by the police, spread through the speakers of the stadium, was not able to remove all doubt. Totti then asked for the match to be called off, at which point Adriano Galliani was reached by the referee by mobile phone — from the pitch — and ordered the game postponed. After the match was postponed a prolonged battle between fans and police, with streets near the stadium being set on fire, eventually resulting in 13 arrests and over 170 injured among the police alone. The match was replayed on March 28 and ended in a 1–1 draw with no crowd trouble.