IN ITALY maybe Bob Geldof is simply appreciated more for his humanitarian efforts than his music. But yesterday an Italian impresario said that he suspected an “organised boycott” after concerts in Milan and Rome were cancelled when only a handful of people turned up.

Geldof is widely admired in Italy for his campaign to alleviate African poverty and Third World debt. But in Milan only 45 people bought seats in a venue built to hold 12,000. He refused to perform, and then cancelled a concert in Rome because of similarly dismal ticket sales.

In Milan the few who did turn up remonstrated with Geldof, saying they had “come a long way to hear you”. “I’ve come a long way, too” he retorted. “I’ve just come from South Africa — it took me 48 hours to get here.” He then posed for photographs and signed autographs.

Geldof had once predicted that he would be remembered as a “great organiser of events” such as Live Aid and Live8 rather than as a “rock star who wrote I Don’t Like Mondays”, Il Giornale noted, adding: “But nobody anticipated a debacle like this.”

Francesco Iacovone, the impresario who organised the concerts, said that he suspected sabotage. “We have been boycotted,” he said, though it was not clear why or by whom. It was incomprehensible that “an artist whose internet site has 19,000 visitors” and who had “fans throughout the world” had failed to arouse interest in Italy.

Signor Iacovone said that some internet sites had falsely claimed that tickets for the concerts were sold out, and that he was “considering legal action”. Corriere della Sera quoted a disconsolate Geldof as saying: “It seems Italy does not love me when I sing.”

Sandra Cesarele, a pop music critic, said that, after the break up of the Boomtown Rats in 1985, Geldof’s career as a soloist had never really taken off, and his last album, Sex, Age and Death, released in 2002, had “not exactly been a bestseller”.

Italian newspapers contrasted the “Geldof fiasco” with the “collective hysteria” that greeted Robbie Williams at the weekend when more than 70,000 fans turned out in 40C (104F) to hear him at the San Siro stadium in Milan.

However, Simone Mercurio, another critic, said that although in 30 years as a performer Geldof had proved to be a “strange and contradictory personality”, what mattered was that he used his energy and gifts as “musician, writer, actor, television producer, politician and opinion leader” passionately to promote charitable causes. He was “engaging, inventive and generous”.

Geldof said that those who had bought tickets for his concerts would be reimbursed, and he promised to return to Italy in September — to perform free. He added that he had written to Romano Prodi asking for a meeting so the Prime Minister could explain “when Italy is going to live up to its promises to help end world poverty”.

Times Recommends

• A track to Shangri-La: Bhutan gets first rail link
• Avatar takings hit $600m in ten days
• Bomb disposal squad is Times’s Team of the Year