Chelsea suspends league champion parade in London

The Chelsea Football Club announced today that it has suspended the championship parade through the streets of London, which was scheduled for next Sunday, due to the attack in Manchester last Monday.

The southwest London team considers it "inappropriate" to go out and celebrate the Premier League title won two weeks ago after the explosion at the Manchester Arena stadium, which left 22 dead and 64 injured.

"Everyone at Chelsea Football Club offers our sincere condolences to those affected by the terrorist attack in Manchester on Monday. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and their friends," said the reigning Premier League champion in a statement.

"We believe that celebrating a championship parade through the streets of London on Sunday is inappropriate. Given that the government has raised the security level in the country, we consider that, in the interest of everyone, this is the procedure to follow and we are convinced that our fans will understand it," the note added.

"After consulting with the Metropolitan Police, the Hammersmith and Fulham Council, and other authorities, we know that the emergency services would have been as professional as they always are, but we would not want to divert important resources by hosting a large-scale event on the streets of London," the statement continued.

Chelsea, which has ensured that its players will wear black armbands at Wembley in the match against Arsenal, had organized a championship parade through the streets of the British capital with its fans for this coming Sunday, a day after the final of the FA Cup.

Meanwhile, Arsenal, their rival in the final (16:30 GMT), has also announced that they will not celebrate a hypothetical championship parade if they win the title on Saturday.

"After talking to the security services, we have agreed to suspend a hypothetical parade through the streets of London and not to have a big screen viewing of the final at the Emirates Stadium, as we had planned," commented Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal's chief executive.