Mike Rowbottom
mikepoloneckThe forthcoming derby match between Newcastle United and Sunderland at St James' Park has produced a moral conundrum. Lest any of the home fans should feel tempted to bait the new Sunderland manager Paolo di Canio by mimicking the straight-arm salute he notoriously gave to his old fans at Lazio - an action that has caused some debate in recent days - Northumbria Police have warned them that any such taunting will lead to arrests. Chief Superintendent Steve Neill insisted that such salutes were "not a joke".

But the thing is, if a fascist or Nazi salute is offered in mockery, doesn't that make it, effectively, an anti-fascist or anti-Nazi salute? And can that be offensive? And if so, to whom?

Perhaps Northumbria Police are simply wary of setting a potentially unwelcome precedent and offering future offenders against public decorum the opportunity to claim that they were only being "ironic."

In the meantime, Di Canio himself, who told an interviewer in 2005 that he was "a fascist, but not a racist", has questioned the Northumbria Police statement. "I don't understand why the police say this, but it is not an issue for me. I don't have any problem with it."

The manager's controversial interview came in the aftermath of the salute he gave to the home fans while a player with Lazio. That gesture was delivered with perturbing intensity in the Stadio Olimpico - which, incidentally, was built at the behest of Benito Mussolini, the former Italian leader who forms the centrepiece of the tattoo Di Canio sports across on his back which also features the fascist symbols of the imperial eagle and bunched rods, or fasces.

dicaniosalutePaolo Di Canio offers Lazio fans his infamous salute in 2005 at the Stadio Olimpico

When football is played at this stadium, by either of its regular residents Lazio or Roma, and especially if they are playing each other, it is a seething cauldron. And when athletics takes place at this arena, it is a large, handsome edifice containing supporters.

The dual usage of the Stadio Olimpico, the centrepiece of the 1960 Olympic Games, points up the vast cultural differences between sports.

The London 2012 Olympic Stadium hosted some of the most purely sporting gatherings one could imagine. Save for the inane plastic bottle-throwing incident before the start of the men's 100 metres, there was no trouble. No hint of trouble. And when it came to the London Paralympics, with a less corporate, less frequently gathered but nevertheless capacity crowd in each night, the atmosphere was even more touchingly decent and innocent.

The chanting before the start of the Men's 100m T44/T43 final, where home sprinter Jonnie Peacock faced - and ultimately defeated - a field which included Oscar Pistorius, might almost have come from a 1950s school match – "Pea-cock, Pea-cock, Pea-cock..." They all but sang "Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate?"

jonniepeacockJonnie "Pea-cock" is roared home to gold at the London 2012 Paralympics

And this was the Stratford Olympic Stadium. It would be nice to think that, in future years, this arena will reverberate to a similar atmosphere of moderated partiality when West Ham United's and other visiting fans become regular visitors. But somehow I feel it would also be unrealistic...

Not that athletics, or the Olympics, has any kind of special claim to decency when it comes to the behaviour of supporters. The Stadio Olimpico also now hosts Italy's rugby team. Before they switched there, they played a little nearer the centre of Rome at the small but beautifully formed Stadio Flaminio. Six years ago I watched Ireland win their Six Nations match there, accompanied by an amiable local who spent much of the game reminiscing about his holidays in Ireland, and sporting an amalgam of team favours, as if he were a vendor who had wandered into the stadium carrying all his goods.

In walking together to the stadium in spring sunshine, Italian and Irish fans, who had drunk together all morning on street corners, passed along an avenue which had been the scene of football violence and serious injury only a few days earlier. It's all about differing sporting cultures.

I am trying now to think of any aberrant behaviour at athletics events. The nearest thing to a riot I have witnessed at an athletics event was prompted by Paula Radcliffe.

In fairness it was not a lot like a riot, but the authorities at the 2001 IAAF World Championships in Edmonton moved in with some urgency to halt a protest being made by Radcliffe and her British team-mate Hayley Tullett at the start of a women's 5,000m heat in which the Russian athlete Olga Yegorova was taking part.

Shortly before the Championships, Yegorova had tested positive for the banned blood-booster EPO but had escaped punishment because the French testing authorities had not adhered strictly to IAAF protocol. Thus the British pair arranged themselves either side of a large sign on which were written the words: EPO CHEATS OUT. Yegorova, gallingly, went on to win the title, but Radcliffe and Tullett had made a point which went global.

Paula Radcliffe with EPO bannerPaula Radcliffe (right) with team-mate Hayley Tullett (left) make their feelings clear about the participation of Russian Olga Yegorova at the 2001 IAAF World Championships in Edmonton

Cheating is cheating, wherever in the world you are. Then again, many athletes, Radcliffe included, have legally improved their oxygen-carrying capacity by training at altitude. Many, indeed, have even had the foresight to be born at altitude.

So maybe...but anyway, at least fascism is fascism wherever in the world you are.

Although there remains the question of why di Canio was politically acceptable in Swindon, where he was in charge of his last club, but is no longer so with his new charges. Can it simply be a matter of geography?

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.