AC Parma, the top-flight Italian football club which is majority owned by scandal-hit foods group Parmalat, is planning a crisis shareholders meeting on Friday to discuss survival options for the debt-ridden club.

Parma, which is among the top half-dozen football clubs in Italy's premier Serie A division, is 98.7% owned by Parmalat, Italy's largest food group which has been engulfed by a fraud scandal since the emergence of a €4bn ($5bn) black hole at one of its Cayman Islands subsidiary.