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Earlier, there were arguments as people tried to enter the stadium
The Egyptian authorities have suspended football league matches indefinitely after at least 22 fans were killed in clashes with police at a Cairo stadium.
People were crushed in a stampede after police fired tear gas at supporters of Zamalek who were trying to gain entry to a match against city rivals ENPPI.
The fans blamed police for forcing them through a narrow, fenced-in passageway.
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has expressed “great sorrow” over the deaths and promised an investigation.
The Egyptian Premier League was last suspended in February 2012 after 74 fans were killed in a riot at a match in Port Said.
The league resumed the following year, but supporters were banned from attending matches until last December. Since then, limited numbers have been allowed into stadiums.
But thousands of ticketless Zamalek fans reportedly tried to gain entry anyway.
The interior ministry said they had “attempted to storm the stadium gates by force, which prompted police to prevent them from continuing the assault”, setting off a deadly stampede.
“Because of the stampede, some choked and died from asphyxiation, while the rest died from being trampled,” a police official told the state-run newspaper, al-Ahram.
But the Zamalek supporters’ group, the White Knights, said the stampede began when police fired tear gas at a crowd being forced to pass through a fenced-in passageway about 3.7m (12ft) wide.
“[The] iron cage inside which most people died was installed a day before the match and it has never been used in any country of the world,” a statement on Facebook said.
BBC