Ultra supporter fired because he insulted the police
The employment relationship was terminated after the employee was convicted in criminal proceedings. Relationship of trust with the company compromised
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Key points
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The disciplinary dismissal of the employee football supporter who has repeated phrases seriously insulting the police and inciting violence is lawful. It is irrelevant that the actions of the employee/offender are not connected with the performance of the employment relationship, because the incitement to violent conduct against the police during football events constitutes a denial of ethical values that are the cornerstone of civil coexistence, undermining the moral stature of the employee and thus causing the very prerequisites for the continuation of the employment relationship to be lacking.
If football hooliganism goes beyond the realms of the ethical minimum and the supporter is convicted of contempt of the police and incitement to commit offences against public officials, the expulsion sanction constitutes a proportionate disciplinary measure.
The position of the Supreme Court
.For the Court of Cassation (order 24100/2025) it is decisive that the employee, with his repeated verbally violent conduct against the police during sporting events, has 'injured his moral character', since this condition severed the trust bond that must underlie the employment relationship. Nor is it relevant that the facts that are the subject of the conviction date back several years before the final judgment, because an employer who decides to await the outcome of the criminal trial also adopts a considered conduct in the interests of the employee.
The timeliness of the disciplinary action must therefore be assessed by reference to the res judicata of the criminal conviction and not to the earlier moment when, for the first time, the employer had become aware of the insulting and violent actions repeated by the employee within the football club.
In criminal proceedings, it had emerged that, for almost two years, the employee had incited his supporters to perpetrate violent conduct against the police, uttering phrases such as 'cops to death' and 'better a thousand cops killed than one ultra-terrorist warned'. The Court of Cassation confirms that, even if these actions are not connected to the performance of the employment relationship, they are 'serious facts of negation of ethical and moral values', suitable as such to compromise the 'moral standing' of the employee belonging to football supporters, justifying his disciplinary dismissal.
