Piermario Morosini died in 2012 after suffering a cardiac arrest while playing for Livorno. Laura Lezza/Getty Images

The three doctors who treated Piermario Morosini, who died after suffering a cardiac arrest while playing for Livorno in 2012, have been given suspended prison sentences of up to a year after being found guilty of manslaughter.

Morosini, who was 25, collapsed half an hour into a match at Pescara and died in hospital an hour and a half later.

Laura D'Arcangelo, a judge at a tribunal in Pescara, sentenced emergency doctor Vito Molfese to one year in prison.

Livorno club doctor Manlio Porcellini and Pescara club doctor Ernesto Sabatini were given eight months each.

The three doctors were accused of failing to treat Morosini correctly, not using a defibrillator despite there having been two at the stadium and a third in the ambulance that took Morosini to hospital.

Prosecutors said Molfese had "failed to comply with medical protocol."

They said: "Out of the three doctors, he was the one better prepared and with the highest degree of competence, but consented to moving Morosini onto a stretcher in an inconsiderate way and failed to use a defibrillator.

"We will never know whether, had protocol been followed correctly, Morosini would still be alive now.

"But it is not acceptable that, if there is even the slightest chance, those who have a duty to act do not act."

Porcellini, the only one of the doctors to attend the trial in person, said: "I will never forget what happened. I was standing behind the Pescara goal because I had just treated another player.

"I immediately noticed how serious the situation was because of Morosini's unnatural way of falling to the ground.

"I ran onto the pitch without even waiting for the referee to blow the whistle. Then the Pescara team doctor joined me, and then more and more people."