RACISM: LIFE BAN FOR PLAYER(Italy)
28/12/2005- A hockey player has been banned for life from Italy's national team after repeatedly shouting racist slurs at a rival skater during a league game, hockey officials said on Wednesday. Daniele Veggiato, a forward for the top hockey league's Alleghe team, was banned from 'all future activities of the national teams' after a match against Cortina on Monday during which he insulted rival defender Luca Zandonella, the Italian Federation of Ice Sports said in a statement. Zandonella's father is Italian and his mother is from Mauritius. During the game, Veggiato repeatedly addressed the 18-year-old Zandonella in Italian with slurs, said Franz Sinn, the head of the federation's hockey section. The lifetime ban is largely symbolic since Veggiato, 27, hasn't played with the national team since 2003 and is not on Italy's roster for the Turin Winter Olympics in February. But hockey officials said the ban was significant. 'He's not worthy of wearing the jersey of the Azzurri,' Sinn said. In addition to the ban, Veggiato was expelled from the rink during the match and will serve a five-match suspension for upcoming league games. 'After the match he apologised (to Zandonella) and he did well, but this didn't change our decision,' Sinn said. 'We have already seen this kind of escalation in soccer and we cannot accept it.'

Overpaid heroes
Although the case involved a sport which has a relatively minor following in Italy, national media hailed the decision as being in sharp contrast with the way soccer officials have dealt with a recent string of racist incidents in the country's most popular game. Turin-based newspaper La Stampa called the ban 'an exemplary punishment' and daily Corriere della Sera pointed out that the speed of the decision 'doesn't belong to soccer, fearful to seriously face it's problems and always ready to defend the negative behaviours of its overpaid heroes.' Last month, Messina's Ivory Coast defender Marc Zoro was reduced to tears and threatened to walk off the soccer field during a Serie A match after Inter Milan fans insulted and booed him. Lazio forward Paolo Di Canio has been at the centre of controversy after appearing to give a fascist salute to fans during recent games with Juventus and Livorno. Di Canio was given a one-match ban and a fine for the Juventus incident. He has appealed against the decision and insists the gesture was not racist but 'a gesture of belonging.' The Italian league must still rule on Di Canio's actions in the Dec 11 match with Livorno.
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