The Italian players’ union (AIC) has slammed Serie A for its ‘disgraceful and inadmissible proposal’ of slashing wages by up to one third.

The AIC failed to reach an agreement with Lega Serie A over salary cuts yesterday, but it was announced this afternoon that 19 top-flight clubs had voted on an unanimous reduction.

Juventus were the only side not included due to their first-team staff having already waived their monthly earnings until June.

However, the proposal has been knocked back by AIC President Damiano Tommasi who says that Serie A’s proposal of cutting up to a third of wages “seems crazy to me”.

“If the Serie A clubs have to meet at an assembly Meeting to say they won’t pay wages when in reality, face to face with the players, individual clubs are looking for common-sense agreements, it’s very worrying,” added Tommasi in a statement on the AIC’s official website.

“I can’t understand the business logic behind this behaviour: putting the players, the main protagonists, in a bad light, when almost everyone else is already discussing with clubs how to get out of this crisis together. It seems crazy to me.”

The union, meanwhile, claimed to have been ‘left speechless’ by the decision by the clubs.

“The AIC Board of Directors, meeting today for their usual weekly meeting, which was followed by a meeting with the representatives of the Serie A teams, deemed the proposal put forward by Lega Serie A and B to be inadmissible.

“The behaviour of the leagues is incomprehensible at a time like this. The desire, not so much implied, of wanting to dump on the players, putting them in a bad light, the economic damage resulting from the crisis situation, is a fact that makes you reconsider the entrepreneurial credibility of those who should be ferrying the football system at this difficult time.

“To think that a resolution from an assembly meeting must be used to decide not to pay players any longer leaves us speechless.

“The same Presidents who would like a suspension of salaries sent their teams out to play until March 9, made them train until mid-March and still monitor and control individual training carried out according to the directives of their coaches.

“The discussion of the past few weeks focused on the contestation of remaining payments to be suspended or postponed, but it never went beyond short telephone calls.

“Now we understand why no agreement was sought on the technical changes to the Collective Agreement.

“The real intention [of clubs] is not to pay. It leaves us stunned, given that several teams are already sitting with their players, to discuss how to help each other at a time like this.”

Clubs are in a difficult situation, where most of them are paying between 60-80% of their revenues on wages. Except that those revenues have been slashed, meaning that the wage bill is more than their current revenue.

Ultimately, all players will have to agree to pay cuts, as Juventus players did, or Serie A will be struggling to find 20 solvent clubs to play next season.

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