Poland’s Super Cup football match has been called off amid safety concerns at Warsaw’s National Stadium, a key venue for the upcoming Euro 2012 tournament.
“After hearing information from the police, with pain in my heart – but taking fans’ safety into account – I decided to call off the Super Cup game,” said Andrzej Rusko, head of Poland’s pro league Ekstraklasa on Wednesday.
Crews had been working as recently as yesterday to prepare the stadium for the match between Legia Warsaw and Wisla Krakow in hopes that the police and city officials would change their minds and give the venue the green light to host Saturday’s game.
Officials had previously denied organisers permission to host the match amid safety concerns. There was inadequate fencing to separate the fans, officials said.
Rusko said the match, which was to be the venue’s first sports event, would likely not take place at all.
The stadium was to be completed in September, but experienced an array of construction delays before it finally held its opening ceremony last month.
Poland is co-hosting Euro 2012 with neighbouring Ukraine. Both countries have experienced delays in building infrastructure to accommodate the expected thousands of football fans.