REBELS: Paolo Di Canio - the West Ham and Lazio legend with links to facism

Di Canio once said that "in life, I have always wanted confrontation", which arguably explains why, despite growing up in an area of Rome where the majority of people supported Roma, he became not just a Lazio fan but a Lazio ultra. "I've had bricks thrown at me by opposing fans," he revealed in his autobiography. "I've been tear-gassed and beaten by police."

Di Canio didn't just follow Lazio as a youth, though; he played for them. After joining the capital club in 1985 while they were still in the second division of Italian football, he finally made his Biancocelesti debut on October 9, 1988, in a Serie A game away to Cesena.

As a supporter-turned-striker, Di Canio was immediately embraced by the Lazio fanbase, but he achieved cult-hero status on January 15, 1989, in the first Derby della Capitale since Lazio's return to the top-flight, by celebrating his match-winning goal in front of the Roma fans in the Curva Sud.

However, Di Canio was sold to Juventus the following year, and it was in Turin that he began to suffer from panic attacks. "It was terrible," he said. "You feel that something goes dark. It's as if your eyes can't see any more."

Di Canio's issues with anxiety, coupled with his combustible character, unquestionably played a part in him failing to settle at not only Juventus but also AC Milan, whom he joined in 1994 after a relatively successful season with Napoli. It was clear that Di Canio was gifted, but his fiery nature also resulted in him clashing constantly with his coaches. Consequently, wherever he went, controversy quickly followed.

After being named PFA Scotland Players' Player of the Year after a sensational debut season at Celtic, Di Canio demanded a massive pay rise. When the club refused, he forced through a £4.2 million transfer to Sheffield Wednesday, where his erratic behaviour continued unabated. Indeed, just over a month after his arrival, with the Owls trailing to third-tier Grimsby Town in a League Cup tie, Di Canio effectively downed tools (and not for the first time in his career).

"Paolo came in and took all his gear off [at half-time], threw his boots against the wall and got in the shower and said that was it," former Wednesday defender Steve Nicol told The Athletic. "We had to get [assistant coach Peter Shreeves] to talk him down off the ledge and get him out of the shower so he could get his gear on and go back out."

The feeling always was at Wednesday that Di Canio was worth the trouble. He had that rare ability to turn a game at any moment and, for all his mood swings, his work ethic was nearly always exemplary, meaning he was easily the fittest player at the club.

Given his endless unpredictability, though, what unfolded at Hillsborough on September 26, 1998, while shocking, came as little surprise to anyone connected to the club.

In the dying minutes of the first half of a Premier League game against Arsenal, Di Canio reacted to a harsh red card for clashing with Martin Keown, who had elbowed him in the face, by pushing referee Paul Alcock. It was by no means a strong shove, but proved sufficient to unbalance the official, who rather comically fell over, almost in instalments.

"Even now, when I watch it," Di Canio later told The Independent, "I can't believe the way he went down, like a drunken clown!"

The incident was no laughing matter, though. The backlash in the British press was brutal (and, in certain quarters, outrageously over the top), and Di Canio was subsequently suspended for 11 matches. By that stage, it was clear that he would never play for Wednesday again. He was on his way to Heathrow Airport even before the game against the Gunners had ended in order to return to his native Italy as quickly as possible.

Wednesday tried to persuade Di Canio to come back, but he refused. It, thus, appeared that the English game had seen the last of the flamboyant forward - but Harry Redknapp had other ideas.

Di Canio was considered borderline uncontrollable. “I’ve managed a few nutters in my time but Paolo takes the biscuit," former Wednesday boss Ron Atkinson said. "Managing Paolo is like trying to keep the lid on a volcano - bloody hard."

However, in January 1999, West Ham manager Redknapp was desperately looking to strengthen an attack weakened by the sale of John Hartson to Wimbledon and he concluded that signing Di Canio was a risk worth taking - particularly as cash-strapped Wednesday were willing to let the versatile forward leave for just £1.5m.

"He can do things with the ball that people can only dream of, and I could tell you other players who've pushed referees but the referee hasn't fallen over," the Englishman said at the time. "He didn't feel he got any support [off Wednesday] and didn't want to go back there."

Redknapp also revealed that all of his players had reacted positively to his pursuit of Di Canio: "Ian Wright said 'That's fantastic', Rio Ferdinand said 'I can't wait to play with him.' You will all have your opinions. But in the end I'll be right." And he was.

Di Canio became such a legend at West Ham that they even later named a lounge at the Boleyn Ground after him, and it wasn't hard to defend the decision. As well as scoring plenty of great goals - including arguably the greatest volley in Premier League history - Di Canio always played as if determined to repay the club for reviving his career.

At West Ham, he even went some way towards cleaning up his image in the eyes of the general footballing public by winning a FIFA Fair Play Award in 2001 by passing up a goal-scoring opportunity in a game at Goodison Park the previous December because Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard had gone down injured.

Soon after, Sir Alex Ferguson even called Di Canio to gauge his interest in moving to Manchester United. “I thought it was a joke,” he told the Transfer Talk podcast. "I thought it was my friend from Italy [calling]. It was strange for me to say no to Sir Alex.

"I said ‘Thanks, 1000 times thanks, but I can’t. West Ham are the family that warmed to me in the worst moment in my life, I’m the skipper, I can’t.' [Ferguson] told me, 'Paolo, respect for this, I love people that think in this way. You are the man that I thought you were.'"

For Di Canio, turning down United was reflective of his growth as a human being during his time in England, which spanned seven seasons, with Wednesday, West Ham and, finally, Charlton Athletic. "I became a different person," he said, "a person with morals, more respect for others."

Upon his return to Italy, though, it was clear that Di Canio remained a very troubled individual.

The joy that came with rejoining Lazio in August 2004 overwhelmed Di Canio to such an extent that he writes in his book 'Il Ritorno' that he "lost the power of speech" and could do nothing but cry continuously. It was because the transfer was something that he hadn't even dared to dream possible, primarily because he was 34 at the time, while he'd also just signed a contract extension with Charlton two months previously.

Struggling Lazio weren't even in a position to match his salary at The Valley, but that didn't matter in the end as Di Canio accepted a colossal wage cut in order to re-join his beloved Biancocelesti. The happy homecoming did not have a happy ending, though.

Contrary to Di Claim's claim, he hadn't become a different person with more respect for others. He remained the same shameless provocateur, as underlined by the fact that when he scored another goal in the derby, on January 6, 2005 - 16 years after his first - he celebrated in the exact same fashion, in front of the Curva Sud.

Worse was to follow, though. Much worse, in fact, as a wild-eyed, rabidly defiant Di Canio performed the 'Roman salute' in front of the jubilant Lazio fans after the game. He would make the same infamously fascist gesture on two more occasions before the year was out before eventually being hit with a predictably lame one-game ban by the notoriously weak Italian footballing authorities.

Throughout all the controversy, Di Canio remained unrepentant. "I am a fascist, not a racist," he told ANSA in December 2005. "I give the straight arm salute because it is a salute from a 'camerata' to 'camerati' [advocates of former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's fascist movement]. The salute is aimed at my people," he said. "With the straight arm I don't want to incite violence and certainly not racial hatred."

Bizarrely, Di Canio subsequently denied ever admitting to being a fascist and threatened legal action against those who insisted otherwise. Unsurprisingly, though, he never actually sued anyone over the quotes, which were entirely in keeping with a character who had professed himself "fascinated" with Mussolini in his 2000 autobiography.

"I think he was a deeply misunderstood individual," he wrote. "He deceived people. His actions were often vile. But all this was motivated by a higher purpose. He was basically a very principled individual. Yet he turned against his sense of right and wrong. He compromised his ethics."

Despite viewing a murderous dictator in such a sympathetic light, and admitting to the Corriere della Sera that he previously "believed in a 'social right-wing' ideology", Di Canio insisted that he had never been a member of a fascist party. He nonetheless continued to be labelled a fascist, not least because he'd literally done so himself by getting a Mussolini-inspired 'DVX' tattoo on his right arm - the sight of which resulted in him being temporarily dropped as a pundit by Sky Sport Italia in 2016.

Tellingly, Di Canio has never had any of his fascism-themed tattoos removed - not even the portrait of 'Il Duce' on his back. "What I carry with me is a symbol of who I once was, of what I have done - mistakes included," he explained to the Corriere, clearly trying to at least insinuate that he no longer supports the right-wing political philosophy that the images represent. But that's clearly not the case.

Di Canio has claimed that "the Roman salute in front of the Curva Nord is the thing I regret most in my entire career" - but, crucially, not because he's embarrassed by aligning himself with such an abhorrent ideology. He has repeatedly refused to disavow his beliefs and argued that his error was not so much expressing his support for fascism but doing so in "in a sporting environment".

"It's foolish to make a political gesture that might resonate with some spectators while distressing many others," he said. "I never should have done it. Sport should remain separate from such things."

The shame, of course, that Di Canio never properly disassociated himself from "such things". In 2010, he even attended the funeral of Paolo Signorelli, one of the leading figures of the extreme-right movement in Italy.

He was unquestionably a fine footballer. And remains a compelling personality, with a wicked sense of humour.

Sadly, though, a clearly conflicted man who once worried that pushing a referee might "erase" everything else he'd accomplished in his career, now seems almost at ease with the fact that he'll forever be marked as a fascist.