Berlusconi scores own goal by insulting football star
Potential error: Silvio Berlusconi. Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images
With victory in his grasp in tomorrow's Italian election, Silvio Berlusconi made a potentially disastrous error yesterday by insulting Francesco Totti, the revered captain of AS Roma, suggesting that he had "taken leave of his senses".
At a final rally outside the Colosseum, Mr Berlusconi had been doing well. He won applause from the crowd when he asserted that the Democratic Party of Walter Veltroni, his centre-left rival, was merely the old Communist Party in disguise and that Mr Veltroni himself, far from being a new phenomenon, had been in politics since he joined the Communists at the age of 15. Mr Berlusconi's promise to lower taxes and tackle crime and immigration also struck a chord.
Then he slipped up when he turned his fire on Totti for backing Francesco Rutelli, the Deputy Prime Minister in the outgoing government of Romano Prodi. Mr Rutelli is standing for Mayor of Rome in the elections, which are both national and local, tomorrow and on Monday.
Mr Berlusconi, who was hoarse and occasionally lost his thread -- remarking jocularly, "I'm getting old" -- appeared taken aback when his announcement that the footballer Ronaldinho was joining AC Milan (which he owns) was greeted with whistles and jeers.
He then made things worse by attacking Totti, declaring to shocked silence that the Roma captain and star of the national team was "out of his mind". "Berlusconi has just lost Rome," a radio commentator said. "If anyone needs his head examining it is Berlusconi. This is a man who, when he was last in power, promised to create millions of jobs but failed to do so."
Mr Berlusconi later said that he admired Totti and that his remark had been misused by the Left. (© The Times, London)
- Richard Owen in Rome
