After Italy had won the top version of the event for the first time, music broadcast in the Silesian Stadium during the victory celebrations contained an altered, football fans’ version of a song composed by Ricchi e Poveri, "Sara Perch Ti Amo" ("Sarah Because I Love You") which contained the words "who doesn’t jump is a Juventus hunchback".

Video clips of this have been widely circulated on social media.

Marcin Nowak, President of the European Games Organising Committee said: "We would like to emphasise that the European Team Championships (ETC) were held as part of the programme of the European Games Krakow-Malopolska 2023, but the Organising Committee was not responsible for their organisation of it.

"The actual organisers of the ETC in Chorzów were the European Athletics Federation and the Silesian Stadium.

"Following reports of abnormal events at the European Team Championships, which drew the attention of athletes, fans and the media alike, we asked the organisers of the athletics competition to explain and take a position on the situations that occurred."

The Italian site sportface.it reported the reaction of Italy’s men’s 200 metres runner at the event, Filippo Tortu, who anchored the Italian 4x100m team to Tokyo 2020 gold.

"The anti-Juventus chorus?" Tortu said.

"I heard it and I sang it too even though I'm very hunchbacked!

"It didn't even seem like a controversy to make.

"We were there with an Inter friend, a Romanista and a Neapolitan one, we hugged and sang that too.

"It's not our fault and they didn't even know it was.

"We laughed about it, I live all year he teased him, it's part of football."

insidethegames has contacted European Athletics and the European Olympic Committees for comment.