A hearth engulfed a merchandise stand outdoors Etihad Stadium as followers gathered two hours earlier than Manchester Metropolis’s Champions League house sport in opposition to Membership Brugge on Wednesday.
The fireplace began within the kiosk close to the stadium’s fundamental entrance simply earlier than 18:00 GMT as followers gathered for a presentation of the membership’s January signings on a stage.
The occasion was halted and the world evacuated by stewards and safety workers earlier than the hearth service arrived and shortly extinguished the blaze close to the doorway to the Colin Bell West Stand.
Metropolis posted on X at 7.11pm that the match would kick-off at 8pm as initially scheduled, all entrances to the stadium had been open and followers may transfer round as ordinary.
Reigning Premier League champions Metropolis have to win the match to achieve the competitors’s play-off spherical.
In a press release launched simply after 18:30, Higher Manchester Fireplace and Rescue Service mentioned its firefighters had been nonetheless on the scene and are “at present dampening down any hotspots and making the world secure”.
The presentation had already began when the hearth broke out, with girls’s gamers Rebecca Knaak and Aemu Oyama on stage on the time.
Males’s gamers Omar Marmoush, Vitor Reis and Abdukodir Khusanov had been set to observe them.
Metropolis cancelled the welcome occasion for the brand new signings and the first-team arrival, however the gamers had been later pictured arriving on the stadium.