Italian football came to a halt on Saturday in the wake of the death on the pitch of Livorno midfielder Piermario Morosini during a Serie B league game at Pescara.

Morosini, 25, fell to his knees 30 minutes into the game and three times tried to stand up before collapsing on the pitch where he died from a cardiac arrest.

"I stormed onto the pitch immediately because I understood that the situation was serious," the ANSA news agency quoted Pescara's medical assistant Claudio D'Arcangelo as saying.

"I did not even wait for the ok from the referee. I gave him aheart massage and for a moment I had the sensation that he was recovering, but there was nothing to do."

Doctors confirmed that Morosini never regained consciousness despite intensive treatment at Pescara's Santo Spirito hospital.

"We did all that was possible to resuscitate the boy, we tried for more than one hour, but he never regained consciousness," LeonardoPaloscia, chief cardiologist at the hospital, said.

An autopsy on the athlete was to be performed Sunday.

It appears that a parked car delayed the entrance of the ambulance onto the pitch at the Stadio Adriatico, although it became clear that the footballer was already dead when he was taken to the hospital.

The Italian football federation called off all weekend games shortly after Morosini's death. The top flight Serie A was to start its 33th round with AC Milan v Genoa on Saturday, but the spectators already in the stadium were told that the game was cancelled.

Pietro Gnudi, the Italian minister of tourism and sport, said during a Radio 1 show that he felt "pain for the death of this young athlete and I am near to his family.

"I wonder if we should consider to make medical tests more thorough and more frequent because it is not acceptable that a boy of25 dies like this."

Morosini was born in the northern town of Bergamo and began playing in the local club Atalanta. He was owned by Serie A side Udinese, who since 2005 loaned him to several lower-division clubs. Livorno welcomed him in January.

He played with Italy's youth teams since 2001 and debuted with theunder-21 Azzurri squad in 2006.

It was a boy to whom we were very close, but he did all the camps with us," Udinese owner Giampaolo Pozzo told Radio 1. "He was polite, fair, very professional and everyone liked him.

"It was so traumatic that everyone did not even feel like talking about football today," Pozzo said about the orginally planned home game with Inter Milan late Saturday.

A message of support came also from FIFA president Joseph Blatter, who tweeted: "The tragedy that has hit those who loved him is a source of pain for all football fans. It is just tears. There are no words to express what I felt when I heard about Piermario Morosini's death."

Morosini is the second professional Italian footballer to die on the pitch.

The 1982 world champion Marco Tardelli recalled on Radio 1 the death of Perugia's Renato Curi, also for cardiac arrest, at 24.

Tardelli, who is now assistant coach to Giovanni Trapattoni at the Irish national squad, was playing with Juventus away to Perugia in October 1977.

"Today is a sad day as it was in Perugia, where the same thing happened with the poor Curi. I have no words to say but I send a hug to (Morosini's) family.

"(In Perugia) it was very dramatic. At once we understood that it was serious. We were all scared and sorry for him."

A heart attack also killed Roma's Giuliano Taccola in Cagliari in1969. Taccola was 25 when he collapsed in the changing rooms, without having played the game.

Volley-ball player Vigor Bovolenta was the latest victim in Italian sport. The former international had a heart attack on March24 while playing with lower-division Volley Forli. He died on the same day in a hospital, aged 37.

A week earlier, Fabrice Muamba, survived a heart failure while playing with English side Bolton against Tottenham in the FA Cup.

The death in Pescara followed a series of losses for Morosini, who lost both parent at a young age.

His former coach at Atalanta, Mino Favini, told ANSA that the player had a disabled brother who committed suicide. He is survived by a sister who is also disabled.

"Despite all these things, he had on his vaguely sad face an incredible sweetness and was always available for his team-mates," Favini said. (DPA)