ROME - Serie A is to appeal the rescheduling of this weekend's Rome derby, which city authorities moved from Sunday to Monday to avoid clashing with the Italian Open men's final.
In a statement, Rome's prefect said that in order to manage "public order and urban mobility concurrently with a world-class event such as the Italian Open tennis tournament", the derby between Roma and Lazio will now be played on Monday, May 18 at 1845 GMT.
A source told AFP that Serie A will appeal in local administrative courts the order to move the volatile derby which was originally set to kick off at 1030 GMT on Sunday.
Serie A will be "forced to act" if the decision to move the derby later is not revoked, the league later said in a long statement.
The ruling was made because the match was due to take place a few hours before the tennis final, possibly featuring Italian star Jannik Sinner, which will be held a stone's throw from the Stadio Olimpico, where Roma and Lazio play their matches.
Moving the derby would also have consequences for four other matches as Roma are one of five teams contesting three Champions League places with two weeks left in the Serie A season.
All five matches involving the teams aiming for a top-four finish have to kick off at the same time, leaving fans travelling to those fixtures in the dark as to when they will actually take place.
Rome's public security authorities are concerned about the thousands of tennis fans who will descend on the Foro Italico while police aim to avoid trouble between Roma and Lazio supporters.
The rivalry between Roma and Lazio is one of Italy's most keenly felt and incidents of crowd violence have been commonplace in and around the Stadio Olimpico on derby days.
At the start of the season Rome's Prefecture had banned the Rome derby from being played at night due to the hostile atmosphere at the game, Serie A said.
"This interventist tendency on the part of the prefectures and police, which makes changes to fixture scheduling as and when they like with disinterest in the impact on home and away fans, the clubs, the players and the national and international broadcasters who have already planned the broadcast of matches, is an extremely dangerous precedent for Italian football," said the statement.
Further complicating matters is a months-long boycott of matches by Lazio's hardcore fans in protest against the stewardship of the club by long-time owner Claudio Lotito.
Lazio fans will remain outside the stadium for the derby, and congregate in the nearby Ponte Milvio district which has long been the pre-match meeting point for supporters.
- AFP