PM: '€400bn for Italian business'

The Italian government has pledged to make €400bn immediately available to businesses and €100m to sporting bodies and amateur clubs.

The funds for businesses will come in the form of guaranteed loans, with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte hailing the package as unprecedented in his country’s history.

“We have also approved the suspension of various tax payments and contributions for the months of April and May,” added Conte during his televised address.

Sports minister Vincenzo Spadafora, meanwhile, pledged €100m of interest-free loans for ‘federations, associated disciplines, promotion bodies, amateur associations and clubs’.

Serie A and the players’ union are currently at loggerheads over salary cuts for the duration of the coronavirus crisis, but it is the clubs and associations further down the pyramid that are most under threat.