Paolo Di Canio

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Personal information
Paolo Di Canio
Full name	Paolo Di Canio
Date of birth	July 9, 1968 (age 38)
Place of birth	Rome, Italy
Height	1.78 m
Playing position	Striker
Club information
Current club	A.S. Cisco Roma
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1985-1986 1986-1987 1987-1990 1990-1993 1993-1994 1994-1996 1996-1997 1997-1999 1999-2003 2003-2004 2004-2006 2006-	Lazio →Ternana (loan) Lazio Juventus Napoli A.C. Milan Celtic Sheffield Wednesday West Ham United Charlton Athletic Lazio Cisco Roma	27 (2) 54 (4) 58 (6) 28 (5) 37 (6) 37 (15) 41 (23) 118 (47) 31 (4) 50 (11)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Paolo Di Canio (born 9 July 1968) is an Italian football player who currently plays for Italian Serie C2 club Cisco Roma.

1 Biography and career
2 Controversies
3 The movie
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography and career

Paolo Di Canio was born in Rome, in the district of Quarticciolo.

He signed for Lazio, playing for his city, in 1985: here he remained until 1990, moving to one of Italy's biggest clubs, Juventus. He stayed there until 1993 and successive seasons saw him join first Napoli and then A.C. Milan. In 1996 he joined Celtic in Scotland, and his successful season in Glasgow (scoring 15 goals in 37 appearances) saw him make a move to the Premiership as he joined Sheffield Wednesday. Whilst in Sheffield, Paolo became the club's leading goal scorer for the 1997-98 season. Scoring 14 goals.

In England, Di Canio is famous for an incident on the pitch in 1998 where he pushed referee Paul Alcock to the ground after being sent off while playing for Sheffield Wednesday against Arsenal. In January 1999, Di Canio signed for West Ham United and helped them to achieve a high league position (5th) and qualify for the UEFA cup, albeit through the "back door" route of the Intertoto Cup. He was also the OPTA player of the season 1998-99. He scored the BBC Goal of the Season in 2000 with a volley against Wimbledon, which is still considered among the best goals in Premiership history. In this season he was also voted Hammer of the Year by the club's fans.

In 2001, he won the FIFA Fair Play award. The previous December, in a match against Everton, in a noteworthy display of sportsmanship, Di Canio shunned a goal scoring opportunity and caught the ball while the Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard was lying injured on the ground. FIFA described the act as "a special act of good sportsmanship." He remained at West Ham until 2003 when, following a very public row with Manager Glenn Roeder and West Ham's relegation, he signed for Charlton Athletic.

In August 2004 he moved back to his home team of Lazio having already signed an extension to his Charlton contract, which involved taking a massive paycut. He scored again in the Rome derby just as he had done fifteen years prior. Di Canio, a fan favorite, played two seasons with Lazio before leaving the team in July 2006 and join Cisco Roma of Serie C2 in a free transfer.

[edit] Controversies

Di Canio has had a chequered career, in which time he has won many honours, but also been the centre of much controversy, such as pushing over a referee during a game and recently making Fascist salutes to celebrate his team winning last year's Rome derby against arch-rivals Roma. As he repeated the gesture in the matches against Livorno (whose supporters are markedly communist) and Juventus in December 2005, he was suspended for one game by the Italian Football Federation and fined 10,000 Euros. He is known to be outspoken and passionate, and is famous for his on- and off-field flair. Also he is known to have been part of the Ultras fan group (Lazio's Irriducibili) in his youth and even travelled with the group to away matches, which is quite uncommon among professional football players.

After criticism from most politicians for his fascist gestures, he stated: "I will always salute as I did yesterday because it gives me a sense of belonging to my people." Di Canio also has a tattoo on his arm which reads "DVX", which is the Latin appellative used for former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Duce. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, owner of A.C. Milan, stated that the salute "did not have any significance" and described the player as 'an exhibitionist but a good lad'. His own team, Lazio, attempted to distance themselves from his actions, claiming that they rejected any "politicisation" of football. Di Canio initially refused to apologise for his actions and claimed that he did not intend to make a political statement. He insists that he is free to communicate with his fans in the manner of his choosing, although Italian law considers Fascist propaganda a crime. Recently, Di Canio has amended his earlier remarks now claiming to the Italian news agency ANSA that "I'm a fascist, not a racist... The salute is aimed at my people. With the straight arm I don't want to incite violence and certainly not racial hatred."^[1] He later denied ever having made that comment which was attributed to his lawyer. Later yet, Di Canio agreed to stop using this controversial gesture, in order to avoid any problem this might cause to Lazio.

[edit] The movie

In the September 1999 Paolo Di Canio acted in a short film called Strade Parallele[1] produced by director Luca Borri. He plays the part of an ever ready young man up to the challenge.