WARSAW: Heavy rain in Warsaw yesterday forced the postponement of Poland’s 2014 World Cup qualifier against England.
With the pre-match deluge leaving the pitch waterlogged officials had no option but to call it off after a number of inspections.
The game will now be played back at the Kazimierz Gorski Stadium at 1500GMT today
After an early evening cloud-burst failed to let up, Italian referee Gianluca Rocchi ordered a delay to the match in Polish capital.
At what had been the planned 2100 (1900 GMT) kick off time Rocchi and one of his assistants made their way onto the turf and threw a ball around to test the conditions.
The referee then ordered a new inspection for 2145 local time (1945GMT).
Apparently fearing the match would be abandoned outright, Poland’s fiercely-partisan crowd made their disapproval clear with a hail of catcalls and whistling
Meanwhile in Belgrade, England players and officials were attacked by their Serbian opponents and racially abused by home fans moments after a 1-0 win over Serbia in a European Under-21 play-off yesterday.
England, leading 1-0 from the first leg, scored with the last kick of the second leg in Krusevac in southern Serbia to secure a 2-0 aggregate victory.
They were then pelted by missiles as they celebrated their winning goal scored by Connor Wickham.
The trouble quickly escalated when Serbia’s players started attacking their England counterparts.
The crowd’s monkey chants could clearly be heard as England defender Danny Rose was shown a red card for kicking the ball into the crowd after the final whistle.
“I think there were one or two racist incidents from the crowd, certainly, and they have been reported to UEFA and they will have to deal with that,” England coach Stuart Pearce told ESPN.
Agencies
