The chairman of beleaguered Serie A club Parma and 21 others have been arrested on charges including embezzlement and money-laundering, Italian police said yesterday.

Giampiero Manenti, whose club face a bankruptcy hearing today, is accused of investing illicit funds, as part of a probe that has led to dozens of raids across the country.

A police source said the public accounts department of Italy's Treasury was among the sites raided.

Prosecutor Michele Prestipino Giarrita said the case related to a group of suspected information fraudsters and money-launderers who had moved millions of euros from a Swiss bank using cloned credit cards.

The suspicion is that the group “made available to Manenti a sum of around €4.5 million through a system which you could call banal but was certainly simple”, Prestipino told a news conference in Rome.

A new law passed last year that defined a crime of investing ill-gotten gains in other business concerns – known as ‘autoriciclaggio’ – has been used for the first time in this case, Prestipino said.

Parma players have not been paid all season and have to do their own laundry and drive their own team bus.

“This is turning into a farce,” club captain Alessandro Lucarelli told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “I want to understand the legal reasons (behind the arrests), whether Parma is involved or not.”

“Following recent legal events the club would be represented by members of its board of auditors at Thursday’s (today’s) hearing,” Parma said in a statement.

Board member Osvaldo Riccobene met staff yesterday to explain the club’s situation and will meet the first team and technical staff today, Parma added.