Parma captain Alessandro Lucarelli spoke out yesterday at the lack of support that players in Serie A have shown as the club nears bankruptcy.

The Italian club are believed to be €197 million in debt and had to call of Sunday’s clash with Udinese due to there not being enough money to pay stewards and other matchday staff.

Parma mayor Federico Pizzarotti will meet club owner Giampietro Manenti today to decide whether or not Parma will go into administration.

But it has fallen upon Lucarelli to try to keep the morale of the squad up, which has proved difficult considering they haven’t been paid since last July. And the defender is disappointed that footballers in Italy have not done enough to help or back the club.

“The only colleague who has called me is (Roma goalkeeper) Morgan De Sanctis,” he told Tele Radio Stereo.

“From a distance the others, when asked their opinion on our situation, have expressed solidarity but the fact is that no one has got in touch except Roma’s keeper.

“People need to understand that what has happened to us, with Italian football in such a bad way, it could happen to anyone.

“Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the decisive day. Tomorrow we will know if (Manenti) is serious or if we will have to take our ledgers to the courtroom.”

If the club were to fold, their remaining fixtures will be automatically converted to 3-0 defeats and Parma would be relegated.

Lucarelli added: “We hope we can finish the season, but we will be watching what the football authorities are doing closely.

“We are behaving in a serious way and we would like the world of football to do the same.”