Plane problems blight Wales’ trip to Denmark

Plane problems blight Wales’ trip to Denmark

Wales’ preparations for the Nations League clash with Denmark were thrown into turmoil when a technical problem with their plane left them grounded at Cardiff Airport.

Ryan Giggs’ squad were facing the nightmare scenario of not being able to arrive in Aarhus until 1am on Sunday morning – just 16 hours before kick-off – after a new charter plane had to be ordered to take them to Denmark.

The squad trained at their Vale of Glamorgan base on Saturday morning before preparing to fly out to Denmark.

But aircraft technicians failed to fix the fault and the earliest the Wales squad could leave Cardiff on a new plane was at 8pm local time.

The late nature of the flight meant that the squad were unable to land at Aarhus airport.

Plans were being made to land at another airport, possibly Copenhagen nearly 200 miles away, and bus the players to Aarhus.

An FAW spokesperson said: “We cannot at the moment provide an estimate of what time the team will fly.”

The FAW were forced to cancel Giggs’ pre-match press conference and could now face a fine from UEFA for doing so.

Denmark’s Christian Eriksen is expected to line up against Wales
Denmark’s Christian Eriksen is expected to line up against Wales (Brian Lawless/PA)

It was only agreed on Thursday that Denmark’s senior squad would play the game following a dispute over the players’ commercial rights.

Denmark fielded a team of lower-league and futsal players in the 3-0 friendly defeat to Slovakia on Wednesday.

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