Lazio players wore images of Anne Frank on their shirts before their Wednesday soccer match in Europe in a bid to tackle anti-Semitic abuse.
The move was in response to a recent incident in which the Italian team's fans used images of the Holocaust victim as a way of taunting their rival supporters, Sky News noted.
Stickers depicting Frank wearing a Roma shirt alongside anti-Semitic slogans were distributed around the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday.
Backlash ensued.
The head of Rome's Jewish community, Ruth Dureghello, took to Twitter in protest, posting a photo of the sticker and writing: "This isn't the terraces, this isn't soccer, this isn't sport. Kick anti-Semitism out of the stadiums," CNN noted.
In response, Lazio players dedicated their match against Bologna on Wednesday to fighting anti-Semitism by wearing Ann Frank shirts with "No to anti-Semitism" boldly emblazoned across the front.
Additionally, team president Claudio Lotito took a trip to a synagogue in Rome.
"I am here to express our total dissociation towards all xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism," he said, according to BBC.
He further stated that the club would annually sponsor 200 fans on a trip to visit the museum on the site of Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.
In condemnation of the recent incident, the Italian football federation announced that a minute's silence would be held before Wednesday's game, and would be followed by the reciting of a passage from Frank's famous diary.
Sky News noted that the tribute was marred when some hard-core supporters turned their backs to the pitch during the Italian national anthem while Roma fans sang club chants during the readings.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.