Manchester City vs. Manchester United 2016 ICC Match Cancelled Due to Weather

The pre-season derby between Manchester United and Manchester City at the 2016 International Champions Cup has been cancelled due to poor weather in Beijing. 

The match was set to be played in the Beijing National Stadium, but United revealed on Monday that the clash will no longer go ahead:

Mark Booth on City's official website confirmed that the match will not be rescheduled and relayed comments from tournament spokesman Patrick Murphy:

"

As the leading pre-season tournament globally, International Champions Cup is committed to delivering safe and professional match conditions for the world’s best footballers, that in turn delivers great entertainment for fans. The extreme weather leading up to the match in Beijing has damaged the National Stadium playing surface to an extent that leaves it in an unplayable condition.

We have collectively made this cancellation decision in the interest of player safety and concerns over the players' subsequent ability to put on a display for the fans that meets the quality standard of the International Champions Cup.

We thank all parties who contributed to the planned staging of this match, in particular the tens of thousands of fans who committed to purchasing tickets. An appropriate refund policy will be put in place by our local partners for those fans.

"

Fans around the world will now have to wait until the two sides first meet in the 2016-17 Premier League season—on September 10—to see new United boss Jose Mourinho and new City manager Pep Guardiola resume hostilities.

The fixture had been in jeopardy for the last couple of days following "torrential downpours in the Chinese capital," which further damaged an already-problematic playing surface, per Neil Custis and Martin Blackburn in the Sun.

Blackburn provided an image of the pitch:

Per the Telegraph, ICC organisers have had "around 70 people working on the pitch day and night," while City's groundsman, Craig Knight, has been assisting for the last 10 days.

Initial fungus problems forced some of the turf on the pitch to be replaced, which was subsequently washed away by rain.

The Times' Paul Hirst explained there was no option other than to cancel the meeting between the two Manchester clubs, set to be the first played outside of the UK:

It was a hotly anticipated clash, not least because of Mourinho and Guardiola's volatile history in their previous clashes as Real Madrid and Barcelona bosses, respectively.

The cancellation of the match brings to a close a somewhat farcical tour of China for United, per the Manchester Evening News' Samuel Luckhurst:

They will return home having played one match—a 4-1 defeat to Borussia Dortmund—and having endured changeable weather conditions, which forced one of Mourinho's press conferences to be moved outside at the last minute and also caused one of their flights to make an emergency landing, per the Daily Mail's Chris Wheeler.

Meanwhile, City are scheduled to play Dortmund in Shenzhen on Thursday.