Serie A strike threat

Players plan to skip fifth round of fixtures

Last updated: 10th September 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Serie A strike threat

Oddo: Prepared to strike

SKY SPORTS ON SKY
There's more live football on Sky Sports than ever before, including the Barclays Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Clydesdale Bank Premier League, England away Euro 2012 qualifiers and La Liga. With four live Sky Sports channels, as well as Sky Sports News, you'll never miss a moment on Sky. Click here for more.

Related links

Teams

Also see

Serie A players have threatened to strike on September 25th and 26th over a collective contract dispute.

A full programme of fixtures is planned for that weekend and television broadcasters and the league schedule would be thrown into disarray were games to be called off.

This is not the first time that action has been touted, but the players' association has always stepped back from the brink or reached an agreement with the authorities.

The weight of ill-feeling is much stronger this time, though, with a complex contract wrangle having raised the stakes.

A collective contract between the association and the league guaranteeing players' rights expired in pre-season and attempts to draft a new deal have faltered.

Concerned

Serie A bosses, who formed a breakaway division from the rest of Italian football this summer, are confident an agreement can still be reached and plan further talks on Monday.

However, top flight performers remain deeply concerned at the state of the game, with fears also raised at the increasing trend of clubs forcing transfers through once a player enters the final year of his contract and is deemed surplus to requirements.

AC Milan defender Massimo Oddo is one of those to have aired his frustrations and he has warned that a strike will go ahead unless the situation alters drastically.

"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," he told a news conference.