Ultra: The Underworld of Italian Football

Shortlisted for the Daily Telegraph Football Book of the Year

From the author of The Dark Heart of Italy, Blood on the Altar and A Place of Refuge.

Italy's ultras are the most organized and violent fans in European football. Many groups have evolved into criminal gangs, involved in ticket-touting, drug-dealing and murder. A cross between the Hell's Angels and hooligans, they're often the foot-soldiers of the Mafia and have been instrumental in the rise of the far-right.

But the purist ultras say that they are are insurgents fighting against a police state and modern football. Only among the ultras, they say, can you find belonging, community, and a sacred concept of sport. They champion not just their teams, they say, but their forgotten suburbs and the dispossessed.

Through the prism of the ultras, Jones crafts a compelling investigation into Italian society and its favorite sport. He writes about not just the ultras of some of Italy's biggest clubs--Juventus, Torino, Lazio, Roma, and Genoa--but also about its lesser-known ones from Cosenza and Catania. He examines the sinister side of football fandom, with its violence and political extremism, but also admires the passion, wit, solidarity, and style of a fascinating and contradictory subculture.