Manchester United this morning cancelled their planned match in Jakarta, part of a Far East tour, following the terrorist bombings of two hotels in the Indonesian capital.
By 8am London time, the death toll in the double bombings in Jakarta had reached at least nine, with 50 injured.
The blasts, which appeared co-ordinated, occurred virtually simultaneously around breakfast time in the city, at the Marriott and the Ritz-Carlton hotels. A car bomb also exploded along a toll road in north Jakarta, where it is thought two people were killed.
Manchester United are on their annual summer tour, accompanied by a large contigent of British press. On Friday, they were in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but they were were scheduled to travel to Jakarta and stay at the Ritz before a friendly match against the Indonesian All Stars on Monday.
Neil Custis, of The Sun, with the team in Kuala Lumpur, told BBC television: “They are definitely not going” to Jakarta, he said.
“They are quite shaken, particularly by the fact that they would have actually been in that hotel on Sunday morning, the very place where the bomb’s gone off.
“So almost immediately they’ve taken the decision to cancel that part of the tour and they’re going to be staying here in Kuala Lumpur.
“The team only heard of the news when they landed. Myself and the other press arrived yesterday, and were watching the news over here, obviously seeing those devastating scenes, and we were immediately aware that we were due
to go there on Sunday morning. So we were quietly shaken by the news as well.
“The team heard the news when they landed and immediately went into a meeting with the British consul over here and decided to call it off.”
It would have been the first time Manchester United will have gone to Indonesia.
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