The Italians have lived through a bitter-sweet year in terms of football.

Last July, Italy were crowned world champions right in the middle of a football scandal that rocked the system from top to bottom. Only days after captain Fabio Cannavaro lifted the World Cup in Germany, tough decisions were taken against top clubs as a punishment for their wrongdoing in previous seasons.

This has led to a rather one-sided Serie A competition, with the championship practically already decided midway through as leaders Inter are too strong in a league that has been weakened by the absence of Juventus and the penalties inflicted on Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio.

As if this was not enough to hurt Italian football – the number of people watching games and sport-related programmes on television has dropped considerably – last Friday a police officer was killed in the fracas that took place after the Catania-Palermo match.

Only a week earlier, an official of an amateur club also died after he tried to quell a fight that erupted between two rival sets of supporters.

The immediate decision taken by the Italian football authorities was to suspend all the leagues indefinitely, a decision that was applauded by one and all. But will things change? Will everything be forgotten once the leagues resume?

There is no doubt that tough measures need to be taken to control, possibly eliminate, violence in football in Italy (and everywhere else). Laws that have been enacted in the past – following similar unhappy events – need to be enforced, and other strict legislation needs to be enacted to stop offenders from marring the game and Italy’s image too.

It is hard to imagine that the league will be stopped for a full year, as someone proposed right after the despicable happenings in Sicily. There is too much business involved in football these days, and the suspension of the league for just one Sunday already meant a loss of millions of euros.

But the authorities wanted to pass on the message that they will no longer tolerate such happenings. And they were right to take such a tough stand.

What is needed now is a concerted effort to bring Italian football back on its feet. And the Italians would do well to look at what has taken place in England over recent years, and use that model to ensure that their stadia are safe and secure, and that football remains a game to be enjoyed by young and old.

For many years England faced the problem of hooliganism, but with tough laws that were applied and a strong investment in security, they were able to curb the phenomenon. Nowadays, English supporters watch the games with no fencing separating them from the players. In Italy, at present this is unthinkable, but since it worked well in England there is no reason why it should not be the case elsewhere too.

It is disconcerting to hear that only a few of the stadia follow the strict criteria that were supposed to have been put in place a few years ago in terms of security. That should be corrected immediately, even if it means that until everything is put in place matches are held behind closed doors, as some have suggested.

Football is a lovely game that is followed by millions. It should never fall victim of people who cannot be described as supporters, but who make use of the game to vent their anger and hatred towards others.

These few hotheads – few because we are sure that the great majority of people who go to football stadia every week do so just to enjoy the game and support their favourite team – should never be allowed to spoil the game for the rest. For one thing, they should be banned from entering football stadia once and for all.

Football is not violence, and the Italian authorities should do their utmost to see that it remains just a game for all the family.