The decision to shut down Poland’s prime football venue was announced on Friday morning, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
It came after a routine technical review of the stadium revealed a defect in its steel roofing, officials said.
After consulting the venue’s designers and experts, officials decided to suspend all activity at the stadium, from sporting events to conferences and tours of the facility, with immediate effect, reporters were told.
Later on Friday, Sports Minister Kamil Bortniczuk summoned a special crisis-response team, made up of officials from the sports department, Poland’s football federation (PZPN) and the national stadium, to discuss next steps, the PAP news agency reported.
Poland’s football team was due to play Chile at the national stadium on Wednesday, November 16, in its last warm-up game before the 2022 World Cup, which starts in Qatar later this month.
That game will now be moved to another venue, PZPN’s spokesman Jakub Kwiatkowski told private broadcaster TVN24.
“We are in talks with the operators of various stadiums and as soon as concrete decisions are made, we’ll announce them,” Kwiatkowski added.
Meanwhile, Bortniczuk told a news conference that the Poland-Chile match would definitely go ahead and the new venue may be announced later on Friday, the PAP news agency reported.
It was not immediately clear for how long the national stadium would remain out of action, officials said.
(pm)
Source: PAP, warszawa.naszemiasto.pl, interia.pl