ROME (AFP)
Last weekend's postponed Italian Serie A programme will now be
played on April 24 and 25, the Italian Football League confirmed
on Monday.
It means Italian top flight clubs will all play five times within
a two week period starting this weekend.
The 33rd round of matches had been postponed as a mark of respect
due to the death Saturday of Livorno's Piermario Morosini during
a Serie B encounter at Pescara.
Two of the matches will be played in the early evening on
Tuesday, April 24 with the rest played on Wednesday, April 25 in
the afternoon and early evening.
The matches cannot be played on the usual 20.45 kick-off times
due to the Barcelona-Chelsea and Real Madrid-Bayern Munich
Champions League encounters being played on those evenings.
UEFA rules state that no top flight club matches in Europe can
take place at the same time as Champions League football.
Atalanta-Chievo and Cagliari-Catania will both be played on the
Tuesday at 18.30 local time with all other matches played on the
Wednesday, a national holiday in Italy.
It means that most of the Wednesday matches can be played at
15.00 local time, as happens on Sundays.
The news means that this weekend's programme will go ahead as
planned.
There had been a speculation that last weekend's 33rd round
matches would be played this weekend with the 34th round moved
into the following midweek.
However, that was rejected in favour of the simplest solution -
to play the 33rd round on April 25, after the 34th round.
However, due to the two matches on April 24, two extra matches
have been brought forward from Sunday, April 22 to the day
before, to give the teams an extra day's rest ahead of their
Tuesday matches.
Parma-Cagliari and Catana-Atalanta will now join Chievo-Udinese
and Napoli-Novara in being played on the Saturday.
It all means Italian teams face a punishing schedule to end the
season with six matches to be played in three weeks.
