A section of the roof of the AFAS stadium, the home ground of the Dutch team AZ Alkmaar, collapsed as strong winds hit The Netherlands on Saturday.
Multiple images have gone viral all over the internet which show a part of the stadium completely destroyed. Luckily, AZ were not training in the stadium and no one was reported injured in the incident.
“This surprised all of us”, the Manager of the Dutch club, Robert Eenhoorn said at a press conference.
“We’ve very shocked but particularly happy there was no human suffering. In the coming days, we’ll conduct a review with experts in this field. Only when that investigation has been done can we elaborate on this matter,” he added.
“No matches will be played in the stadium if the situation is not safe. As soon as more is clear about our upcoming matches, we’ll report it as soon as possible,” he said.
Notably, the home team were all set to play in the same stadium against Mariupol in a qualifying match for the Europa League on Thursday. They had another match scheduled here against Groningen but both of them will now have to be rescheduled at a different venue.
The stadium was built 13 years ago in 2006 and had a crowd capacity of 17,000.