Italy football season under threat

The move means former champions Fiorentina leapfrog the third division

Nineteen out of 20 clubs in Italy's second division have voted to boycott the forthcoming football season, prompting an early recall of parliament.

The clubs are angry about the last-minute expansion of Serie B to include four clubs from lower divisions.

The decision to expand the league was taken by the Italian football federation (FIGC) on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi issued a decree giving it powers to override the courts.

The Italian parliament will discuss the crisis on Monday, just days before the first matches are due to be played.

The summer recess would normally last well into September.

Fiorentina promoted

The Serie B teams say that the expansion of their division would force them to play more matches while diluting their earnings.

Serie A is still scheduled to start on 30 August, though the president of Brescia, Gino Corioni, has been quoted as saying that he supports the Serie B teams and that he is "ready to stop (his) team from playing".

The row stems from a lawsuit brought by the Sicilian team Catania, challenging its relegation to Serie C at the end of last season.

The FIGC's ruling this week allowed it and two other teams to remain in Serie B - and also promoted Fiorentina from Serie C2.

FIGC chief Franco Carraro said that Fiorentina - which was one of Italy's most successful clubs before it went bankrupt last year - should be in the second division because it had many fans, and drew big TV audiences.

Mr Berlusconi, who is also the president of the current European Champions AC Milan, interrupted his holidays in Sardinia for an emergency cabinet meeting on Tuesday saying that getting the country's football in order was a priority.

His decree was designed to prevent the court actions over relegation, and a separate dispute over television fees, from delaying the start of the football season.

Spanish threat

The decree applies not only to the FIGC but also to the other ruling bodies of Italian sport.

Spain is also facing disruption to the start of its 2003-04 football season, because of a dispute over television rights.

Alfredo Rodriguez of Celta Vigo said on Friday that 30 clubs from the first and second divisions had ratified a decision made earlier in the year not to play unless a satisfactory deal was concluded.

"There is a difference of between nine and 10 million euros between what we want and what we are being offered," he said.

"We need to have a guaranteed minimum price before we can start the competition."