{"id":767915,"date":"2026-06-29T14:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767915\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T14:14:11","slug":"football-free-zone-wimbledon-extends-world-cup-screening-ban-to-players-lounge-wimbledon-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/767915\/","title":{"rendered":"Football-free zone: Wimbledon extends World Cup screening ban to players\u2019 lounge | Wimbledon 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wimbledon\u2019s ban on showing World Cup<\/a> matches will extend to the players\u2019 lounge. This is the first Wimbledon to coincide with a men\u2019s World Cup since 2018, when England reached the semi-finals, and All-England Club\u2019s chief executive, Sally Bolton, has confirmed its strict no-football policy will be in full effect again.<\/p>\n

That means England fans wanting to watch Wednesday\u2019s last-32 match against the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 5pm BST will have to do so surreptitiously.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to be showing the football on any of the big screens around the ground,\u201d said Bolton. \u201cBut clearly, if people have got their phones, then we\u2019re not going to prevent people from watching the football.\u201d<\/p>\n

A stricter policy will apply in more prestigious areas of Centre Court, with Bolton saying: \u201cWe do discourage people from using their phones in the Royal Box.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are 17 World Cup matches that will be staged at the same time as Wimbledon<\/a> action could be taking place. That has led to reports of players asking not to have their matches scheduled when their home country is in World Cup action. However, Bolton said that was not the case. \u201cSo far we haven\u2019t had any of those requests,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m conscious some people have suggested that in the media. But they certainly haven\u2019t made any requests to the referees\u2019 officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether the games would be shown in the players\u2019 lounge, Bolton said: \u201cWe\u2019re not showing the World Cup on any of the TVs in the grounds. If people want to watch it on their phones, that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years ago, during England\u2019s Euro 2024 penalty shootout against Switzerland, there was a disruption in play as fans watched the action on their phones while Novak Djokovic took on Alexei Popyrin<\/a> on Centre Court. Djokovic smiled at the interruption and then pretended to take an imaginary spot-kick while Popyrin put up his hands to mimic a save.<\/p>\n

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On Sunday, Djokovic said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a few times with European Championships and World Cups in the past where there were particularly interesting matches. I would be last on Centre Court and England would be playing. That was quite the experience for me on court.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wimbledon\u2019s ban on showing World Cup matches will extend to the players\u2019 lounge. This is the first Wimbledon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-767915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}