Champions League game off after fatal stabbing in Athens

A 29-year-old fan was killed in overnight clashes between rival supporters in the Greek capital Athens, prompting Uefa to postpone Tuesday's Champions League qualifying game between AEK Athens and Croatia’s Dinamo Zagreb.

Eight fans were also injured in the extensive clashes outside AEK’s stadium on Monday night, while Greek police said they had made 88 arrests, mostly of Croatian supporters. Amateur video of the incident showed chaotic scenes, with fans hurling flares and petrol bombs and clashing with wooden bats.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic called his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis to express his condemnation of the violence, with the Croatian government describing the clashes as “horrific".

Fans gathered at the site of the fan’s death on Tuesday, leaving flowers, candles and black-and-yellow AEK football scarves at the makeshift roadside shrine.

After the fan's death, Greek authorities had requested that all supporters should be excluded from the match at the Opap Arena. Dinamo fans were officially already excluded under a previous ruling by Uefa.

AEK fan Kyriakos Mantzakidis, who runs a sports blog, said police should have prevented scores of Croatian fans from travelling to Athens.

“This was a murderous attack against ordinary people. Many of the people gathered in this area were not soccer fans,” Mantzakidis said. “It is a failure of the government to plan properly. It was a good decision to postpone the game. The atmosphere was too tense.”

Seven Greek police officers were suspended pending an internal investigation, government officials said, while a senior public prosecutor launched an official inquiry into the deadly clashes. Uefa says what was going to be the second leg in Zagreb next