Italy to bar soccer players from wearing No. 88, which has coded meaning

withersailor@aussie.zone to World News@lemmy.ml – 13 points –
Italy to bar soccer players from wearing No. 88, which has coded meaning
m.jpost.com
8

Are there actually players who are choosing it for that reason at all?

At the end of the article:

According to Sports Illustrated, two players in Italy’s top league, Serie A, currently wear No. 88: Lazio’s Toma Bašić and Atalanta’s Mario Pašalić.

I just looked up both on Wikipedia and nothing weird or regarding Nazi connections mentioned there, so maybe just a coincidence to get a nice looking 2-digit number, not knowing the code behind it.

Isn't Lazio known for their extremely far-right Ultras?

Might not be intentional from his side but he for sure knew that that would make his shirt popular in certain parts of the fanbase...

not knowing the code behind it.

Idk how italy works on the matter but as a German it'd be highly unlikely not to know these. Since Italy was part of the axis it feels like people would be aware.

For the uninitiated H is the 8th letter and HH is a shorthand for the hail. 88 is the dogwhistle

Not to mention Lazio being known for having ultra groups that are borderline neo-nazi...

... since when do numbers in not-handegg-football go that high...??

Generally they don’t, which makes it more ‘intentional’ when they do. Usually the numbers are <30.