Big freeze disrupts Serie A

Roma's home game with Inter Milan and Cesena's encounter with Catania have been brought forward to 3pm local time on Saturday, while the match between AC Milan and Napoli at San Siro, originally an 8.45pm start, will also kick-off at 3pm.

The announcement comes after four midweek games were lost to the sub-zero conditions.

The scheduled games at Atalanta, Bologna and Siena were all postponed in addition to the earlier match between Parma and league leader Juventus.

With temperatures expected to plummet to below -10 degrees celcius this weekend, Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani had written to the president of the Lega Serie A, Maurizio Beretta, to request that his side's match with Napoli be postponed.

The switch to an earlier kick-off time appears to be an attempt at compromise from the league, which is keen to avoid further disruption to the fixture schedule.