Lazio 'ultra' fans want no women in stadium 'sacred space'

ROME (AP) - Lazio's "ultra" fans have caused outrage by telling women to avoid their "sacred space" in the club's Stadio Olimpico.

The die-hard supporters distributed flyers saying that "the Curva Nord represents for us a sacred space" and that the first few rows "have been experienced like the trenches."

The flyers add: "In the trenches, we do not allow women, wives and girlfriends, so we invite them to position themselves from the 10th row back."

Lazio spokesman Arturo Diaconale told Italian news agency Ansa on Sunday that "it is not the position of the club, we are against any discrimination."

Some Lazio fans caused outrage last season when they littered the Stadio Olimpico in Rome with images of Anne Frank - the young diarist who died in the Holocaust - wearing a jersey of city rival Roma. Lazio was fined 50,000 euros (then $63,000) by the Italian soccer federation because of the anti-Semitism displayed by the team's fans.