Italian ultras want ‘women, wives & girlfriends’ banned from stadium's ‘sacred space'

Die-hard supporters of Italian Serie A side SS Lazio have produced a letter calling for "women, wives and girlfriends" to be banned from a "sacred" section of Curva Nord at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico.

Hardcore fans distributed a flyer before their team’s league opener at the stadium versus Napoli on Saturday - a 2-1 home defeat - which described the first 10 rows of the section, known for housing the team's most vocal fans, as "trenches" not to be utilised as the setting for a “romantic” day out.

“The Curva Nord represents for us a sacred space, an environment with an unwritten code to be respected,” read the flyer, AP reported.

“The first few rows, as always, have been experienced like the trenches. In the trenches, we do not allow women, wives and girlfriends, so we invite them to position themselves from the 10th row back.

“Those who choose the stadium as an alternative to a carefree and romantic day in (Rome’s) Villa Borghese (gardens), should go to other sections.”

The flyer is signed "Direttivo Diabolik Pluto", who is one of the leaders of a group of Lazio ultra group ‘Irriducibili’.

The Curva Nord is also where Irriducibili also made headlines last season by placing anti-Semitic stickers depicting holocaust victim Anne Frank in a shirt of arch-rivals AS Roma onto the stadium walls.