ROME (AFP) - It seems the death of Filippo Raciti may have counted for little as far as the ugly face of Italian football is concerned.

Three weeks after the policeman's murder by rampaging fans in Catania, Italy's football clubs are being allowed to reopen their stadiums despite not all of them fully complying with safety regulations, while their relationships with the 'ultras', or hard-core supporters, apparently remain strong as ever.

This weekend also sees the return of evening matches with pleas by police to stick to afternoon kick-offs overidden by the demands of television companies.

"We are all in pain, but the show must go on," said Italian football league president Antonio Matarrese shortly after domestic matches were suspended in the wake of the violence in Sicily.

"This is one of Italy's most important businesses and it has to continue. We have television contracts to honour."

Matarrese's comments caused widespread outrage, but in the same week that Raciti's funeral was broadcast live on state television, football in Italy resumed, albeit with many matches played behind closed doors.

Interior Minister Giuliano Amato initially insisted stadiums not fully complying with the 'Decreto Pisanu' -- safety laws brought in two years ago but continually ignored by the clubs - would be forced to play their matches without spectators.

But despite their so-called zero-tolerance policy, the government has allowed all except two Serie A stadiums to reopen - at Ascoli and Catania - even though many of them have not yet fallen into line with the law.

Clubs with an adequate number of electronic turnstiles are now being allowed to open their gates to season-ticket holders, whether or not they have the required number of closed circuit television cameras or a crowd pre-filtering zone.

"After saying they would adopt a hard line to combat the violence, the government are back-tracking, and almost all the stadiums are open again," Vittorio Feltri, editor of Italian newspaper Il Libero, told Radio Monte Carlo on Friday.

"It will only be a matter of time before there is another death."

Another question being asked is whether more turnstiles would have prevented the violence in Catania. Raciti was killed away from the stadium when police came under attack from Catania fans armed with bricks, bottles, iron bars and even home-made bombs.

The government also urged clubs to distance themselves from their ultras, but it seems some of them are unwilling to do so.

According to a report in the Gazzetta dello Sport, Serie A club Roma gave all of their 1,500 tickets for their Champions League match away to Lyon on March 7 to the club's ultra groups, the day before they were officially due to go on sale.

Fans who turned up at the ticket outlets on the official selling day were allegedly threatened by ultras after complaining to Roma stewards.

One ultra told the Gazzetta: "We in the 'Curva' (the enclosure where the hard-core fans congregate) have more rights than the others and that's why we get to keep the tickets."

The Gazzetta said the ultras sold many of the tickets on to others, while some ended up on online auction website E-Bay with an asking price of 120 euros - three times their face value.

Many laws in Italy are regarded as an infringement of liberty and ignored. How many more people have to die before Italian football turns the rhetoric into reality?