Supporters and Rivalries
Roma is the fifth most supported football club in Italy behind Juventus, Internazionale, Milan and Napoli with around 7% of Italian football fans supporting the club (according to the Doxa Institute-L'Espresso’s research of April 2006). Historically the largest section of Roma supporters in the city of Rome have come from the inner-city, especially Testaccio.
The traditional ultras group of the club was Commando Ultrà Curva Sud commonly abbreviated as CUCS; this group was founded by the merger of many smallers groups and was considered one of the most historic in the history of European football. However, by the mid-1990s CUCS had been usurped by rival factions and ultimately broke up. Since that time, the Curva Sud of the Stadio Olimpico has been controlled by more right-wing groups; A.S. Roma Ultras, Boys, Giovinezza and others. The oldest group Fedayn is apolitical however and politics is not the raison d'être of Roma, just a part of their overall identity. In September 2009 the club unveiled plans to build a new 55,000-capacity stadium in Rome's western suburbs.
The most known club anthem and motto is Roma,Roma,Roma by singer Antonello Venditti. The title roughly means "Roma is not to be questioned, it is to be loved" and is sung before each match. The song Grazie Roma, by the same singer, is played at the end of victorious home games. Recently, the main riff of The White Stripes song Seven Nation Army has also become widely popular at games.
Read more about this topic: A.S. Roma
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)