As you may well be aware, Italy managed to beat England 2-1 in Brazil last night. Emotions always run high in Italy when its national football team takes to the pitch and, it has to be said, Italians can be prone to a certain amount of post victory triumphalism.
Indeed, after Italy’s victory, Italian politician and member of convict Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, Maurizio Gasparri, got a little carried away; he went as far as insulting England and the English in a post victory comment on Twitter.
This is the offending, and offensive, tweet:
The translation of this senior statesman’s tweet – “Fa piacere mandare a fare [in culo]…gli inglesi, boriosi e coglioni” is “It pleases me that those pompous idiot English got it up the…. [arse]” – the vulgar word for “bottom” was not used by Gasparri, but there’s another even more vulgar way in which Mr Gasparri could have ended his boorish comment. Whether he intended the more vulgar version, we shall probably never know.
Other translations of the Italian words “boriosi e coglioni” are “arrogant” and “arseholes”. Such an erudite chap is Mr Gasparri. And yes another interpretation, via the The Guardian, of senator Gasparri’s words is that he called the English ‘pretentious pricks’.
Should a senior politician of a nation lower himself to common insult and vulgarity after a football match? Quite a number of Italians who commented on Gasparri’s tweet did not think so. One Italian wag sarcastically commented that perhaps Mr ‘Tactful’ Gasparri might make a good foreign minister for Italy. What a great thought – world war three would be just around the corner!
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
Gasparri is one of those Italians who has never been too happy about Italy being liberated from fascism by the combined forces of the USA, the UK and Italian anti-fascist partisans. Italy’s victory was a convenient excuse for a little nastiness on his part.
Beware, Mr Gasparri, one more episode like that and MI6 might cause something about your past to come to light. Something you’d rather keep from public eyes – you probably know what this is.
Yes, the World Cup is a bit special and emotions do run high, but at the end of the day, it’s a game. Both winners and losers deserve equal respect. High ranking politicians like Italy’s Maurizio Gasparri should be setting good examples not bad ones.
UPDATE: Italian media is calling for Gasparri to resign and the UK’s Guardian has picked up on the story:
Italian politician under fire after labelling English ‘pretentious pricks’
