If Paolo Di Canio is a fascist, he should recognise the totalitarianism of his hysterical critics

I’ve often thought that British football needed a good dose of fascism — and now at last it has exactly this, in the form of the combative and somewhat eccentric Italian chap Paolo Di Canio. He has been installed as the manager of Sunderland, and all hell has broken loose.

Di Canio has described himself as a fascist — but definitely not a racist, which shows that he is at least au fait with the current dictum that there is but one crime and one crime alone that matters. He has a couple of fascisty tatts on his muscular shoulders, one of which seems to be invoking the late, controversial politician Benito Mussolini, whom Paolo has previously described as ‘much misunderstood’. There is a photograph somewhere near you at this very moment of Di Canio snarling in the manner of a Staffordshire bull terrier while giving a straight armed salute to the supporters of the team he once played for — Lazio, of Rome.