Italian football, amateur and professional - even encompassing most informal family games in local parks - has been at a standstill ever since, after senior officials demanded the shutdown.

The accused firmly denies responsibility for the police officer's death. He was arrested in Catania on Tuesday for violence and resisting public officials and has been in custody since then. Police claim an examination of news footage of the riots outside Massimino Stadium led to his identification, his head half hooded and armed with a lavatory basin that had been torn from the wall of a toilet inside the stadium. He has no previous convictions.

His profile goes some way to reinforcing the anxiety voiced earlier in the week by police and politicians that Italy's hooligans, the "Ultras" or teppisti as they are known, are no longer found solely among the deprived, dysfunctional families in grim estates but are drawn also from the middle class.

His father works for a local electronics firm, and the accused is said to be a fanatical rugby player. He holds a season ticket for Catania's games. The only obvious black spot on his CV is his membership of Forza Nuova, a far-right splinter group that claims the credit for getting Catania's planned Gay Pride parade called off last year.

The website of Forza Nuova, which names the accused as Alan di Stefano, claims he and the organisation are victims of a conspiracy cooked up by the intelligence services that decided to blame them for last Friday's violence, a charge they furiously repudiate. "This is not the first attempt to frame a movement which has won the sympathy of many," they say.

Meanwhile, Italian football resumes this weekend following its enforced week's break. But Italy's national game will, for the time being at least, be a shadow of its former self. Ronaldo, the legendary Brazilian, is likely to play his first game for AC Milan, Silvio Berlusconi's side, behind closed doors after the club's San Siro stadium's security precautions failed to satisfy the government. In total, 11 weekend matches will be played before empty stands, while only six stadiums have been given a clean bill of health, including Rome, Genova and Catania's Sicilian rival Palermo.

Adriano Galliani, the vice-president of Milan, vehemently protested against the ban on his club opening its gates for Sunday's match against Livorno. "We have done everything we could do," he said. "It's obvious we want to play at the San Siro with open doors... I think it's fundamentally unjust to close a stadium like the San Siro on which we have already spent €20m (£13m) for works that are never ending. We have done everything the law asked us to do and have no reason to feel guilty." Other measures imposed by the government that will leave the nation's top clubs with a serious hole in their finances include the banning of night games. Block tickets may no longer be sold to visiting fans and fireworks and flares are banned inside stadiums.

The Sports minister Giovanna Melandri, under attack from football officials all week for her alleged ignorance and incompetence, said: "My hope is that in a reasonable amount of time we will be able to say that we have profoundly changed the system of football in this country and given our country a more credible, transparent football that has driven violence away."