介绍:
The International Champions Cup's match between Manchester United and Manchester City in Beijing has been cancelled due to players' safety concerns with the rain-damaged pitch.
As a result, there will not be sufficient matches played in the 2016 International Champions Cup China to determine a winner.
Le Sports, the operator of the game, apologized the next day. Liu Shijie is the manager for events.
"As the operator, we apologize to all the fans. I understand that many fans of Manchester United and Manchester City were looking forward to watching the game. The cancellation has painfully disappointed many of the fans. I hereby, representing Le Sports, express our apologies."
Despite the sudden announcement to call off the match due to the "bad weather conditions", a huge number of fans had already gathered around the Bird's Nest in the late afternoon, dressed up in club uniforms while waving banners to welcome their respective teams with no knowledge of the cancellation.
Liu said fans who have purchased tickets to the cancelled match can be refunded at their original point of purchase for a value no higher than what they paid.
"The last ones who want to cancel the game is us, the operator. In this case of cancellation, I'd say that there's no winner among all the organizations. We are all losers. We understand the fans are upset. And we would like to take the responsibility and give some compensation to those who bought the tickets and traveled across the country to watch the game. "
However, many of fans, who bought expensive tickets from scalpers, didn't buy the weather excuse, as the sun shone again and the clouds dispersed in the early evening.
Photos showing angry fans stamping on tickets and demanding extra compensation went viral on China's social networking platform Sina Weibo.
But despite their anger and disappointment, a lot of fans also shows their understanding and support for their beloved players.
The organizers, however, released another statement in the late evening, further explaining that the hard decision was made after agreements between both teams following an assessment of the rainwater-damaged pitch at the Bird's Nest. The statement says:
"The cancellation was made in the interest of player safety and comes following extreme weather in Beijing over a period of multiple days that have left the playing surface in a condition deemed to be un-fit for playing. Due to international travel schedules and planned sporting commitments, the match cancellation is definitive and the match will not be re-scheduled."
Both teams made official apologies to the fans.
Later, Le Sports was even criticized to cover and hide the grassland of the football field of the Bird's Nest. Liu clarified the facts.
"Actually, we found the problem of the football playground in the Bird's Nest in the middle of July and proposed to fix the condition of the stadium. But the result was unsatisfactory. Then Beijing received heavy rain on July 20th and 21st, which made the condition of the pitch even worse. Then we evaluate the ground twice a day. On the day of the game, we evaluated the pitch twice together with both teams. Officials from Manchester City gave out the negative opinion in the morning. And officials from both teams decided the ground was not suitable for the game in the last evaluation at 13:00 in the afternoon."
Many fans questioned Le Sports for its professionalism and asked why there's no Plan B for the game. Liu explained, it's impossible to change the stadium in such a short time.
"Actually, we have sold out more than 51 thousand tickets. In Beijing, the Workers Stadium is just around 40 thousand seats, while there are just thousands of seats in Olympic Sports Center. Technically, there's no suitable replacement venue for the Bird's Nest."
Other supporting measures including security, logistics and transport were also difficult to change at the last minute.
The cancellation hurts not only the fans, Liu admitted this also had huge impacts on organizers including Le Sports, Bird's Nest, sponsors and football clubs from Manchester. However, it is pointed out that the Chinese football industry was the biggest loser out of uproar. The infrastructure and professionalism for the football games in China is being questioned, again.
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