(Reuters) -Saturday’s Serie A game between Bologna and AC Milan has been postponed due to heavy rain and flooding in the area, the league said on Friday.
The clubs and the league organisers met on Friday in an attempt to find alternative arrangements, after Bologna mayor Matteo Lepore had earlier announced that he had ordered the suspension of the match.
An agreement could not be reached, with solutions such as playing the game in Bologna behind closed doors or at a neutral stadium rejected, and the game has been postponed with a rescheduled date yet to be announced.
“The match is postponed because with a decision that in my opinion is incomprehensible, the mayor has prohibited the match from being played even behind closed doors,” Milan chairman Paolo Scaroni told reporters after the meeting.
Schools, parks and sports centres would remain closed in the city on Friday as a precaution after heavy rains since Oct. 19 caused landslides, flooding, road closures and some power outages in several areas, the mayor added.
The municipality of Bologna said in a statement that the match would bring about 35,000 people near the most critical area of the city, causing problems due to the presence of fans and traffic closure in the surrounding area.
With both clubs involved in the Champions League, finding a new date for the postponed game will prove difficult, and Milan will now be without Theo Hernandez and Tijjani Reijnders for Tuesday’s match against leaders Napoli.
Both players were set to be suspended for the Bologna game, but will now serve their suspension in the next match.
(Reporting by Chiranjit Ojha in Bengaluru and Trevor Stynes; Editing by Peter Rutherford and Toby Davis)
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