{"id":415057,"date":"2026-05-06T20:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415057\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T20:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T20:03:09","slug":"fifa-world-cup-football-australia-urges-reversal-of-melbourne-world-cup-fan-zone-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/415057\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifa World Cup: Football Australia urges reversal of Melbourne World Cup fan zone ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Katrina Sedgwick, chief executive of the Melbourne Arts Precinct, which manages the square, said the behaviour of some fans led to its decision not to host World Cup watch parties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis issue is really with a very small group of fans who, unfortunately, behave in a way that is just antisocial and frankly, dangerous,\u201d she told public broadcaster ABC.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge is when you have a crowded square with lots and lots of people and people are smuggling in flares.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some people were injured by flares in previous World Cup screenings, Sedgwick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think on the final night of the last Socceroos game we screened, we counted over 100 flares and fireworks that had been let off in the square.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Socceroos begin their World Cup against Turkey in Vancouver on June 13, followed by games against co-hosts the United States in Seattle six days later and Paraguay in California on June 25.<\/p>\n

Former Socceroo Craig Foster criticised the ban on Federation Square watch parties, posting on social media: \u201cAll stakeholders should be working to overturn this absurd decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go all in to unlock every Fifa World Cup 2026 match with a TVNZ+ Event Pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katrina Sedgwick, chief executive of the Melbourne Arts Precinct, which manages the square, said the behaviour of some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,85,1060,1559,10542,13503,25293,36862,5213,123,8842,111,139,69,1118,2954,3109,137248,36565,213,10505,3552,16670,377,49817],"class_list":["post-415057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-2246","tag-australia","tag-ban","tag-called","tag-cup","tag-fan","tag-federation","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-melbourne","tag-melbournes","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-parties","tag-public","tag-reversal","tag-reversed","tag-sports","tag-square","tag-urges","tag-watch","tag-world","tag-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}