Real Madrid defender Fabio Cannavaro admits he's happy to be playing away from Italy.

"I feel lucky to be playing abroad," he told journalists. "I play for Real Madrid and they are a club with a perfect stadium where children can watch games without fear of violence.

"From abroad I can see the bad image that Italian football is projecting. We haven't managed to control the sport that we love.

"It is absurd that someone should die trying to get to a football game."

While the events of the weekend came as a shock to Cannavaro, he admits that he saw evidence of problems building when he was in Italy.

"We need to change the relationship with certain sets of fans," he stressed. "Too often we give too much importance to people who have little to do with the real fans.

"The clubs put up with too many of these incidents and I even remember interference on the training ground when I played in Italy.

"The people in charge must change things as quickly as possible as we can't go on like this."