Women's football final moved to later kick-off

The women's Olympic football final between Sweden and Canada has been moved to a later kick-off to avoid the intense midday heat, Fifa and Tokyo 2020 said in a statement on Thursday.

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The game had been due to kick off at 11am local time in Tokyo (0200 GMT) on Friday but both teams complained because of the high temperatures expected and it will now be played at 9pm local time (1200 GMT) at Yokohama's International Stadium.

World soccer's governing body Fifa and Tokyo 2020 organisers said the decision had been made "in order to continue to provide the best possible conditions for the players, and having taken into consideration the impact of weather conditions at the Olympic Stadium over the last few days."

The decision was welcomed by Swedish officials.

"It feels good that our desire for a later kick-off has been well received, and that we now have a match time that is better suited to the players in terms of the heat," said the head of Sweden's women's team, Marika Domanski Lyfors, in a statement.

But Sweden midfielder Caroline Seger questioned why the decision had taken so long after the request was made on Wednesday.

"What can you say, it's absolutely awful. For our part we haven't put too much focus on it, but if you look at the whole, it's utterly awful to have to wait so many hours, the day before the biggest match you can experience. They cannot be allowed to do this again. It's unavoidable to be irritated and angry," she said in a comment reported by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet's website.

Canada reached the final by upsetting gold-medal favourites the United States in their semi-final while Sweden beat Australia in the last four.

“We have come this far, so we want to come back home with a gold medal,” said Canada coach Bev Priestman.

“The team won’t go into that final just happy to be there and go home with silver. We have a group of 22 players who are ready for that final, who are ready to do something special for our country," she said.

On Thursday, the US took the bronze medal after beating Australia 4-3 in Kashima.

The men’s bronze-medal match between Mexico and Japan, originally scheduled for 8pm (1100 GMT) in Saitama on Friday, will be played earlier, at 6pm (0900 GMT) at the same venue, to avoid a clash with the women's final.