By Andrew Warshaw
October 16 – The World Cup qualifier between Poland and England was dramatically called off tonight and rescheduled for 5pm local time tomorrow following unrelenting rain that made the £400 million ($646 million/€493 million) national stadium in Warsaw unplayable.
The Italian referee inspected the pitch twice before postponing the match, a huge disappointment for the anticipated 55,000-strong crowd, as well as causing considerable disruption for both teams.
Despite rain being forecast, officials in Warsaw for some reason took the view that the weather would not be bad enough to close the retractable roof at the start-of-the-art stadium, a decision that ultimately ended up causing huge embarrassment for the local authorities in charge of the modern new venue that was built for the 2012 UEFA European Championship just a few months ago.
Under FIFA rules, both sides must attempt to replay the game within 24 hours if a match is postponed in these circumstances.
If that is not possible, the tie must be played on a date agreed by both associations.
“There are no other possibilities,” said England manager Roy Hodgson (pictured above, right).
“You can’t find dates at international level.
“The dates that are available are all taken up, so you can’t just suddenly decide we’ll play it another time.”
Polish officials have yet to decide on how tickets will be reallocated, while the English Football Association (FA) has formally requested the match be played under the roof second time round.
Jeering and booing were heard around the stadium as supporters began to realise the game was being called off, with many of the 2,000 England fans due to fly out of Warsaw on the same night.
Polish authorities later reasoned that the roof couldn’t be closed because the wind and rain were too strong but while postponement was clearly the correct move for safety reasons, it called into question why the roof, specifically built for this kind of eventuality, wasn’t shut before the conditions worsened.
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