Football Unfiltered: Italian Ultras through Tobias Jones

Italian football has long been associated with elegance, skill, beautiful stadiums and the legends of Serie A. But beneath that layer you see on TV broadcasts and hear about from commentators, another life unfolds. Brutal, uncompromising, sometimes illegal. A life you won’t find in match highlights, but one that fills the stands and the streets. In his book Ultra: The Underworld of Italian Football, Tobias Jones takes us on a journey into a world you won’t find on football clubs’ Instagram feeds.

Football is just a pretext

Jones doesn’t write about football in the usual way. This isn’t a story of transfers, matches or tactics. It’s a report about people. About fans who define themselves not by trophies, but by the colours they’ll defend until the end. For Italian ultras, football is just a pretext to express identity, belonging and rebellion.

We enter a world where daily life follows different rules. Where loyalties run deeper than the law, and hierarchies are forged on the terraces and the streets. Jones meets fan group leaders, journalists, sociologists, police officers - weaving a story that reads more like a thriller than a classic sports report.

Support as a way of life

In many Italian cities, being an ultra isn’t a “hobby”. It’s a way of life. A movement with its own rules, codes, rituals and sacred days. A world where community comes before the individual, loyalty above all, and the stadium is a second parish. The author doesn’t shy away from the hard topics: crime, politics, violence.

Jones follows ultras in Rome, Naples, Bergamo and Livorno. He tells the stories of those who could stop a match, block a neighbourhood or turn a stadium into a stage for protest. But the same people also raise funds for sick kids, help their communities, and provide solidarity marketing departments could never fake.

What remains when the floodlights go out?

The biggest strength of Ultra: The Underworld of Italian Football is its authenticity. Jones doesn’t do tourist journalism. He doesn’t chase cheap drama. He listens. And by doing so, he helps us understand why in Italy fandom is passed from one generation to the next. Why some groups are powerful enough to influence club politics. And why, for many, being an ultra is the last bastion of freedom in an increasingly commercialised game.

This is a book that doesn’t offer easy answers. But it asks all the right questions.

Not just for football fans

Tobias Jones’ Ultra is a book you won’t walk past. It’s not just about football - it’s about society, identity, ideology and the lines you need to cross if you want to understand the world around you.