Rome, August 06: Arriving in a city famous for its left-wing, working-class culture, Alberto Aquilani will hope that one embarrassment in particular can be put behind him as quickly as possible. Last year Liverpool’s new £20m signing admitted a grudging admiration for Italy’s former fascist dictator Benito Mussolini which might yet take some explaining to his new fans.
In an interview in Gazzetta dello Sport in March last year, Aquilani, 25, was asked to clear up a rumour that he had a marble sculpture of the Italian leader who sided with Adolf Hitler in the Second World War. He answered with an alarming naivety: “My uncle is very keen on him and he gave me something to do with Mussolini but as for me, I don’t know anything about politics”.
The existence of Aquilani’s marble sculpture has never been confirmed and the comments caused a stir for a while in a nation where politicians from the extreme right and left are still active in mainstream politics.
–Agencies