Soccer:Serie A players announced plans to strike during matches on September 25th and 26th because of a dispute over contracts, throwing Italian soccer into further disarray.
The Italian footballers' association has been sabre-rattling for months after a collective contract between the trade union and the league guaranteeing players' rights expired in the close-season and talks over a renewal faltered.
"The association, in perfect symphony with the players of Serie A, has decided not to go on the field for the fifth round of matches of the Serie A championship on September 25th and 26th in protest against requests to impose new contractual rules," AC Milan right back Massimo Oddo said today.
A full programme of Serie A games is planned for that weekend and if the strike goes ahead it will cause havoc with television broadcasters and the league schedule for the rest of the season.
Italian soccer has only just recovered from the chaos of a 2006 match-rigging scandal while wholesale changes have been made at the football federation after the national team were dumped out of the World Cup in the group stage as holders.
The players' association has threatened to strike several times in recent seasons over an array of disputes but it has always previously stepped back from the brink or come to an agreement with soccer bosses.
This time the weight of ill-feeling over a complex contract issue has been greater.
"There will definitely be a strike," said association member Oddo, a 2006 Italy World Cup winner who now rarely plays for Milan. "The strike is against the lack of a new collective contract but also the fact we players feel we are treated like objects."
The top flight Serie A, which formed a breakaway division from the rest of the Italian league at the start of this term with club bosses vowing to run things their way, had said they would propose a new collective deal this Monday.
Allied to the absence of a collective agreement, the players' association has become alarmed by the trend of clubs trying to force players to move teams in the last year of their contracts when they are no longer wanted.
Juventus were keen to offload left back Fabio Grosso, who scored the winning penalty when Italy lifted the 2006 World Cup, but he has remained with the club despite barely featuring.
Among other cases, AS Roma forward Julio Baptista was also offered for sale but decided not to leave.
Fans and some club presidents have long lamented the vast amount of money top soccer players are paid and the fact that if a footballer wants to move clubs he can invariably force through a transfer by inferring he will not give his all for his team.
The association has hit back by saying some clubs had wanted to rip up the last year of a contract of a player they no longer wanted and only pay him 50 per cent of what he was due.