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An estimated 10,000\u00a0people are set to join a pro-Palestinian march in the north Italian city of Udine on Tuesday ahead of a crucial World Cup qualifier between Italy and Israel.<\/p>\n
The highly contentious football match will be played in Stadio Friuli at 20.45 in front of an expected 9,000 spectators, potentially fewer than the protesters expected to demonstrate in the city on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Security chiefs plan to keep the rally away from the stadium, situated in the suburbs, as the Azzurri seek to defeat Israel to secure a place in the play-offs for the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Last Sunday, the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) reported that\u00a0more than\u00a08,000 tickets were sold out of a total of 16,000.<\/p>\n
However, the Stadio Friuli can normally hold 25,000 people, and its capacity has been reduced. If the numbers remain the same, the stadium will be largely empty.<\/p>\n
The game is going ahead as scheduled despite widespread calls for it to be called off, including from the centre-left mayor of Udine,\u00a0Alberto Felice De Toni, who\u00a0said it was “inappropriate”.<\/p>\n
Italian media reported that Udine was “in lockdown”\u00a0ahead of the match, with “exceptional” security measures in place, including snipers\u00a0on the roofs of the stadium and the hotel where the Israeli players are staying.<\/p>\n
Fans will be subjected to intensive screening before entering the stadium whose\u00a0entrance has been blocked with\u00a0anti-intrusion barriers to prevent vehicles from ploughing into crowds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Around 1,000 police\u00a0officers – with reinforcements from special forces, including bomb disposal experts – will be on duty in the city, while police helicopters and drones patrol the skies.<\/p>\n
Protests\u00a0against the controversial match are due to take place around Italy on Tuesday evening, including in Rome’s Piazzale Ostiense, leading to traffic restrictions.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Image: Protests in Udine on 14 October 2024. Photo credit: luca pbl \/ Shutterstock.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Italy-Israel match to be played amid tight security in Udine. An estimated 10,000\u00a0people are set to join a pro-Palestinian march in the north Italian city of Udine on Tuesday ahead of a crucial World Cup qualifier between Italy and Israel. The highly contentious football match will be played in Stadio Friuli at 20.45 in front<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[3256,1902,26779,2547,18287,26713,2426,3118],"class_list":["post-39578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eventi","tag-controversial","tag-cup","tag-isr","tag-italy","tag-protests","tag-qualifier","tag-set","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/polinex.cluster021.hosting.ovh.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}