New Delhi: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s great-grandson dribbled past players during his debut match for SS Lazio. Romano Floriani Mussolini’s team went on to win the Serie A match against Bologna FC. The match was held at Bologna’s Renato Dall’Ara, the stadium Mussolini inaugurated in 1927.
The 23-year-old defender replaced Adam Marusic in the 19th minute, who limped off the field with a thigh injury. Soon, the Lazio fans at the away stands erupted in chants of “duce, duce, duce”—an Italian word meaning “leader” that served as the fascist-era title for Mussolini.
Bologna’s match marked Romano’s first senior team appearance for Lazio—the club he joined in 2016 when he was 13.
However, his family’s connections have frequently led to intense scrutiny and fans’ reactions, despite his repeated efforts to distance his career from the past political stance which his family had adopted.
Romano is also the son of Alessandra Mussolini, a far-right Italian politician.
“My surname has never caused me any problems and, from my point of view, the less said about it, the better,” Romano had earlier said about his relation to Mussolini.
Social media users also used satire to highlight his on-field position—a right-wing defender.
“I originally thought it was just a coincidence that his name is Mussolini, but it turns out he’s really the great-grandson of the Dictator Benito Mussolini. Fun fact: he plays as a RIGHT WING DEFENDER,” one X user had posted.
Lazio a far-right team
Lazio is widely known in Italy for having a section of supporters with strong far-right and neo-fascist ties. While the professional sports club itself is officially neutral, its stadium culture has long been tied to political extremism.
Supporters have frequently been recorded performing fascist salutes and chanting slogans, honouring Mussolini inside the Stadio Olimpico, the home ground for Lazio.
Previously, the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy (UCEI) urged the Italian Football Federation and the Lazio management to “intervene” with “utmost urgency” after a video went viral showing Juan Bernabe, the club’s mascot handler, holding Lazio’s eagle in front of the stadium’s supporters, doing a straight-arm salute and leading the crowd in chants of “Duce, Duce”
“Faced with the ostentation of gestures and symbols that evoke fascist ideals, there can be no ambiguity and hesitation,” wrote Noemi Di Segni, the UCEI’s president. “The world of soccer must free itself from fascists and carriers of hatred, a hatred that from the soccer fields spreads to the squares.”
Club management regularly issues statements condemning racism and fascism, and they have banned specific individuals or staff members involved in political outbursts.
After Segni’s statement, the club said, “Measures were taken against the company, aimed at the immediate suspension from work of the person concerned and the possible termination of existing contracts.”
However, critics and anti-discrimination groups often argue that the club needs to take stronger, more permanent action to remove extremist politics from the stands.
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Who is Benito Mussolini?
Born in 1883, Mussolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and the founder of Fascism, who ruled Italy as a totalitarian dictator from 1922 to 1943. Known as Duce (“The Leader”), he dismantled Italy’s democratic institutions, allied with Adolf Hitler during World War II, and pioneered the far-right totalitarian governing style that defined European fascism.
In 1922, capitalising on social chaos and economic instability, Mussolini organised a mass fascist march on the capital. Fearing a civil war, King Victor Emmanuel III capitulated and appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister.
He was removed from power, arrested by the Italian king, and stripped of his dictatorship in 1943. Eventually, in 1945, after being rescued by Germany and serving as a puppet leader in northern Italy, he was captured and shot dead.
“As Europe’s first Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini set the stage for a new form of dictatorship based on a totalitarian philosophy supported by the classes which most feared radical revolution from below. Hitler and other right-wing dictators learned from Mussolini’s early example. His legacy still lives in the extreme nationalist and neo-fascist political organisations found throughout the modern world,” states a research paper.