Italian footballers union AIC on Friday announced a 15-minute delay to weekend play to protest a one-year doping ban handed down on two players who showed up late for a Serie B drugs test.
All matches in Serie A and B will start a quarter of an hour late in a show of solidarity with former Brescia winger Daniele Mannini, who is now at Serie A club Napoli, and Brescia striker Davide Possanzini.
The Italian Soccer Federation (FIGC) said Friday it would meet next Thursday with the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), Italian sport's ruling body.
FIGC said it was already looking at possible recourse against Thursday's ruling by world sport's top court, the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
There has been an outcry against the bans in the Italian soccer world.
''A year's ban for what turned out to be a logistical problem seems excessive,'' said FIGC chief Giancarlo Abete, while AIC voiced ''dismay and indignation'' at the ''disproportionate'' penalty.
Brescia's coach at the time of the game against Chievo in December 2007, Serse Cosmi, said he was ''certain that nothing was done to dodge the doping test''.
''My feeling is that (the CAS) decided to strike two weak links to set an example,'' said Cosmi.
Brescia Chairman Gino Corioni reiterated his assertion that the players were delayed because of his decision to read the riot act to the team after the 3-0 home defeat.
As a result, he repeated, the pair missed the half-hour deadline for submitting samples.
Corioni stressed that a doping official, whose job it is not to lose sight of the chosen players, was invited into the locker room but declined.
''The two lads didn't do anything wrong, it isn't fair''.
Napoli General Manager Pierpaolo Marini called the verdict ''a colossal injustice'' and said the team, whose recent poor run has taken it out of Serie A's top four, would suffer from Mannini's absence.
The club, lying 7th after a 2-1 defeat at Fiorentina Wednesday, is trying to hasten the signing of Argentine forward Jesus Datolo as a possible replacement for the winger, he said.
