Serie A stars may face salary cuts

ITALY’S footballers’ union (AIC) could consider renegotiating big contracts to help clubs tackle the financial crisis stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

“The sustainability of football during and after this crisis is of obvious interest for all those who are part of it, including footballers,” AIC president Damiano Tommasi said yesterday in reply to a suggestion from the Italian football federation (FIGC).

“I will ask (the government) to have the possibility to renegotiate some contracts to create a system of assistance within football,” FIGC boss Gabriele Gravina had told Radio24.

“We must give signals that show an ability for self sustainment and internal solidarity, before seeking help from the outside. This should not be frowned on. It cannot be in a moment of emergency, mostly when very high stipends are concerned.”

With all sporting activities suspended from March 9 to April 3 in locked-down Italy, clubs face heavy losses from the halt to league games.

“Missing income, rescheduled events, government support, help from FIGC and from international bodies: all these elements will tell us what the role of footballers will be,”Tommasi told the ANSA news agency.

Numerous clubs and footballers, meanwhile, have shown solidarity with donations to hospitals and organisations striving to contain an outbreak that has caused 31,500 infections and more than 2,500 deaths, the highest toll in Europe.

AC Milan veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic was was the latest star to launch a fundraiser, asking for donations from sport professionals and fans, to help Humanitas, a Milan-based private institutions that runs hospitals in hard-hit northern Italy.

Striker Gonzalo Higuain, of Italian champions Juventus, also urged support for the funding campaign “Distant but united,” which his club started last week in support of hospitals in Turin and the Piedmont region. – dpa