The opening weekend of the 2011/12 Serie A season will be postponed after strike action by the players was confirmed on Friday.
Players’ union (AIC) and the clubs’ union (LEGA) are at odds over a new collective bargaining agreement folloiwng the expiration of the last deal at the end of the 2010-11 season.
The strike was confirmed by players’ union president Damiano Tommasi after the clubs rejected the AIC’s proposal of the signing of a temporary deal until June, 2012.
Serie A is the second European league disrupted by industrial action this season after players in Spain’s top two divisions went on strike last weekend.
There are two barriers to a new deal in Italy, the main one concerns the ‘solidarity tax’ that players are required to pay.
Club owners want the players to pay the tax themselves, but while the players agree in principle, they do not want to be the only people in Italy to pay it and are asking for a new law to be created concerning the tax.
The players also say that players in the middle of contract disputes must not be made to train apart from the main squad and are opposed to plans to cancel the final years of the contracts of players embroiled in such disputes.
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