According to TA reports, Atletico Madrid will challenge Arsenal in tonight’s Champions League away game, but an episode occurred during the pre-game training session.
After Atletico Madrid arrived in London on Monday, they conducted pre-match training at the Emirates Stadium in the evening. The weather was rainy and cold. Atletico Madrid players planned to go to the Emirates Stadium locker room to take a hot shower after training, but found that the shower room in the locker room could not provide hot water. In the end, they had to go to the hotel where they were staying to take a shower, which is a 45-minute drive away.
In addition, at 17:30 that day, Atletico Madrid discovered a hot water system failure after arriving at the Emirates Stadium, and reported it to Arsenal immediately. However, the problem was not resolved until the end of training, more than an hour after the problem was reported.
Atletico Madrid players kept talking on the way back to the hotel. They were surprised and angry. They could not understand that in a top competition like the Champions League and a top venue like the Emirates Stadium, they encountered such a problem. You must know that Arsenal invested more than 300 million euros in this summer's transfer window, but did not even provide basic logistical support.
Atletico Madrid believes that it is the most basic treatment for visiting teams to go to the locker room to shower after training on the field. Any home team should ensure that the stadium hosting its game is operating normally, let alone in a top competition like the Champions League. Therefore, Atletico Madrid has complained to UEFA.
Arsenal responded. They first expressed their apology to Atletico Madrid, and said that after receiving reports from Atletico Madrid about the hot water system failure that day, they quickly organized personnel to carry out emergency repairs. Although the repair was ultimately successful, Atletico Madrid had also ended training and it was too late.
Finally, Arsenal promised to strengthen inspections of stadium facilities before the game to avoid similar problems from happening again.