Serie B team Cosenza protest after going from 12 to 10 men

(Reuters) - Italian Serie B side Cosenza say they will protest after they accidentally ended up with 12 men on the pitch and were then quickly reduced to 10 in the 1-0 defeat by Salernitana on Sunday.

The confusion arose after Cosenza made a triple substitution in the 75th minute but one of the outgoing players, Mirko Bruccini, did not realise he had been replaced and stayed on the pitch, according to the Corriere dello Sport and other media reports.

After several minutes, the referee realised what had happened and told Bruccini to leave the pitch while Abou-Malal Ba, the player who replaced him, was booked for entering the pitch without permission.

Shortly after that, Ba was booked again for a bad tackle and sent off, leaving Cosenza with ten men.

Cosenza said in a statement that they would complain to the disciplinary tribunal "regarding the episode that occurred in the 75th minute of the second half match that led to the expulsion of Abou Malal Ba."

"The club has requested the match documents to assess whether, and to what extent, there had been negligence and/or violations of the regulations which might have affected proper conduct of the match," it said.

(Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by Dhristian Radnedge)