Cardiff City have defended their pest control policy after a rat halted play during the second half of Wales’s World Cup qualifier against Belgium.

The Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois made an unsuccessful attempt to catch the rodent during Belgium’s 4-2 win on Monday night before the Wales substitute Brennan Johnson ushered the rat off the Cardiff City Stadium pitch. The rat then slipped past a ball boy and disappeared behind the VAR monitor and was not seen again.

“It’s something I’ve not seen in my 36 years at Cardiff City,” said Wayne Nash, the club’s head of operations who also works as a security manager for the Football Association of Wales and Uefa. “We’ve had a stray dog on the pitch but this was something new, a freak of nature.

“The stadium is close to allotments and railway sidings and we know rats can be problematic. The railway bankings can be infested with rats. We know they are in the area and we do have the odd sighting of them. But we work closely with our pest control partners and do everything we can to keep them away.”

Rat bait stations are in operation at the stadium and...