Montreal vs Toronto match, delay over 30 minutes
The Eastern Conference Championship series between the Montreal Impact and Toronto FC on Tuesday night, didn’t open just as a regular match, but was delayed 30 minutes due to an issue with the width of the penalty areas at Olympic Stadium.
According to league officials, the width of both penalty boxes measured at 16 yards instead of the regulation 18 yards and the match, which was originally set to kick off at 8:08 pm ET, was pushed to 8:40 pm ET to allow the boundaries to be repainted.
“Obviously, it’s the first time that it’s happened to us,” Montreal Impact owner Joey Saputo told ESPN’s Katie Witham. “We’ve been in situations like this before at Olympic Stadium where we have 61,000 fans. We had the [CONCACAF] Champions League final here, seems nobody have noticed then!
“It’s the responsibility of the referees to check it out. Unfortunately the referees got here a little bit late whether it was traffic or traffic around the stadium. So it’s unfortunate, but we have to take the responsibility for it. It’s our fault and it’s unfortunate that this has happened.”
