KEY POINTS:
Not exactly an employment law issue, but I couldn't resist it.
At a football match between Napoli and Inter Milan in Italy (won 1-0 by Milan), some Milan fans displayed some rather provocative banners. One said "Neapolitans have tuberculosis". Another described Naples as the "sewer of Italy", and yet another said "Ciao cholera sufferers!" Milan fans also sang offensive chants.
The background is that there was a long running problem in Naples with municipal refuse disposal. The authorities simply ran out of landfills, and the local mafia were said to be actively involved in preventing new sites being developed because they reap large profits from disposing of rubbish in illegal landfills.
The crisis ran for several months, and eventually the army was forced to step in to help resolve the problem, and a German city even agreed to burn 30,000 tons of Naples' rubbish.
Hence the abusive banners at the Napoli-Inter Milan game. However, a court in Naples recently exacted revenge by ordering Inter Milan to pay a Napoli fan €1,500 compensation for "existential damage" caused by the banners. His representative argued that the concerted and vindictive abuse made his client feel "indignant and deeply hurt". In addition to damages, the court ordered Inter Milan to pay the fan's costs.
Is it just me, or is this going just a bit far? Can you imagine a Blues fan suing for compensation because he (or she) sees a banner telling Jaffas to go home? Or Crusaders fans (note: this is only an example!) taking umbrage at chants accusing them of enjoying close relations with sheep? If the courts indulged similar claims against sporting bodies here, pretty soon we'd have no money with which to pay the players.
Can't see it happening, but never say never ...
Greg Cain
Greg Cain is an employment lawyer at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts.
