2nd LD: At least 22 Egyptian soccer fans killed in clashes with police

At least 22 Egyptian soccer fans were killed and some 20 others injured in clashes with police on Sunday night in the capital Cairo, Egypt's state-run MENA news agency reported.

The clashes took place when the fans of Zamalek club, known as Ultras White Knights, tried to storm Cairo's Air Defense Stadium to watch the match between Zamalek and Enppi club without tickets.

The fans were killed due to suffocation and stampede after police forces used teargas to disperse them, according to a press statement of the Interior Ministry.

The ministry said they had set the ceiling of spectators at 10,000, but huge numbers of Zamalek club fans came to watch the game.

The fans without tickets forced their way into the stadium walls before police dispersed them, said the ministry.

Some of the dead had their necks broken while many of the injured suffered broken bones and bruising, the state news agency MENAA quoted the health ministry as saying.

Young Zamalek fans waiting outside the hospital for injury treatment appeared shocked.

The match went ahead and ended with a 1-1 draw, despite the clashes.

The public prosecution ordered arrest of the leaders of the Zamalek supporters' group after the riot, media reported.

Shorty after the violence, the government decided to postpone the national league championship, the Cabinet's office said in a statement.

"It has been decided to postpone the league to a time that will be decided later," the statement said.

Unlike most other games between Egyptian football clubs, the match between Zamalek and Enppi was open to the public, since 2012 deadly football riots.

In 2012, a riot at a soccer stadium in the city of Port Said left 73 people dead and hundreds of others injured after a match between the clubs of Al-Masry and Al-Ahli. Endi