Purple Lily boss sued Mi ti: using mafia titles to offend Italian-Americans

Due to the inappropriate wording used in an article in May 2021, Florence boss Comiso took the Milano Sport to court for "serious defamation", and the case has now ended the preliminary investigation stage. Comiso said the article used mafia-related suggestive language, which is an open belittling and discriminatory approach to himself and the Italian-American community as a whole.

As Italy's largest circulation sports newspaper, Sport Milano belongs to the RCS Mediagroup group controlled by Club owner Urbano Cairo, while the controversial article was written by Andrea Di Caro, deputy editor of Sport milano.

In May 2021, Florence boss Comiso held a press conference to lash out at the media and directly attacked Cairo, the owner of The Milan Sport, the president of the Turin club, which Comiso ironically called "the genius who knows football", and Andrea Di Caro then taunted/fought back at Comiso in an editorial that still hangs on the website of The Milan Sport.

The article refers to Comiso as "Don Rocco" (Rocco is Comiso's name, and Don is an honorific title for the mafia leader, reference to the movie The Godfather), and also writes: "Don Rocco is not starring in a gangster blockbuster of Coppola or Martin Scorsese, but just a low-cost Italian cop B film (Serie B and Serie B), because the presentation is too clumsy." ”

Although the article also said: "Comiso does not have to feel offended, he can be like us, in the face of your attack and laugh." ”

But the Florentine boss apparently didn't find the article interesting, and he decided to file a lawsuit against The Milano Sport newspaper for "serious media defamation," arguing that the wording of the article was "overtly derogatory and discriminatory" and furious at the description of the gangster movie.

Comiso said that Sport Milano offended the reputation of the entire Italian-American community because they worked every day with their italian compatriots abroad to try to dispel the stigmatizing stereotype of "Italy = mafia", and the Milan Sport article reminded people of the ugly Italy, the image that should only appear in old-fashioned movies.

According to local Sardinian media reports, the Cagliari Prosecutor's Office had concluded its preliminary investigation into the case in December (the first edition of the Milano Sport newspaper was printed in Sardinia, so the place of action was in Cagliari), and the entire case had entered the formal legal proceedings.