Well, I mentioned before that champagne corks might be popping at the headquarters of football aka Soccer Victoria. The Premier has ordered Fed Square to change course. Socceroos and possibly other games will be shown on the big screen in a few weeks at Fed Square. Dan Birrell, CEO of Football Victoria. Good morning.
Good morning. Tom there's a glass of champagne with your name on it when you're ready to. Thanks for the opportunity.
Did did you directly lobby the Premier on this?
Yeah, absolutely. And I want to probably start from the outset by thanking Jacinta, um, the Premier, Jacinta Allan, for overturning this decision. Obviously a short time ago now and hopefully common sense prevailing. We're very appreciative and thankful for the state government's support on this so quickly. Um, and yeah, really excited now by the opportunity to bring community together in Fed Square. And we've got so many iconic moments to show for that time.
One of our producers went to one of the Matildas screenings a couple of years ago, and he was hit in the back by a lit flare. Can you guarantee that sort of behaviour won't happen this time around?
I can't guarantee that. That's probably as much on security and police. What I can say is the time slots for this year's Socceroos, a very family friendly day. Weekend motivated time slots, 12 p.m. and 2 p.m.. So I think it's significantly more unlikely there will be flares, but I'd also and we're more than happy to play a key part of this with government security and police presence to ensure that people are aware of the messaging and that this is now the opportunity for us as a community.
And let's just not be let's be clear here. It's not just football that goes to these events at Fed Square. This brings Melbourne together. There's a lot of people that I know that go and obviously cause havoc, but let's let's do it safely.
Well what cause havoc safely?
No. Let's enjoy the experience safely. Not cause havoc safely.
Well, okay. But but unfortunately, flares in soccer. I'm sorry. I obsess about flares, but it's the main difference between a a soccer or football crowd and AFL or rugby league, rugby union, whatever. They seem to go hand in hand. I mean, what do we do about that?
Yeah, I think it's probably a challenge that we've had locally as a game as well. And it's something that I think a lot of deference goes to what European markets do and what they allow. I concur that I don't think it's a particularly safe environment to have flares, and we've been pretty strong with our stance towards that behaviour at a local level to a state league level in ensuring that people know that they are unsafe and significant.
You know, risks and dangers emerge when you're throwing flares and you're behaving like that. I think messaging is important. I think from a security perspective, we've now implemented bag checks, wanding and ensuring that people know that ultimately, the people that are punished for this behavior aren't always the people
that have the flares that goes part of that. But often the teams involved, or in this instance as well, the entire Melbourne community would be affected if the behaviour of a few unfortunate people.
But things like bag checking and that sort of thing, that works well to say the likes of Aami Park or Marvel, where you've got gates and people have to pass through the gates. The problem with Fed Square is it's essentially open on three out of four sides. Like you can just wander in. Now, are they going to like have full on fencing and gates and the ability to stop people and search them? Because that's not easy to do at Fed Square?
Yeah. No, agreed. My understanding from a just a message correspondence a short time ago is that there are security measures being planned to put in place that would potentially even just have temporary crowd control barriers to ensure that it isn't then maximised in terms of the crowd, that there is a limit. And ultimately that makes it a little bit easier to hopefully have a safe environment as well. But I agree with you, Tom. Like flares aren't something
we support. It's certainly a dangerous behavior as well.
I get emails from, uh, what do they call it with the Melbourne Victory? What's what's the sort of more aggressive. There's a name for the support. Active active support. That's right. And they say flares are safe. They're just part of the atmosphere. And I've always invited them to say righto. Let's light one and I'm going to hold it on your forearm for, say, 30s. And then we'll see how safe you think it is. But they, they seem to feel that there's absolutely no danger associated with them.
Yeah. I mean, that couldn't be further from the truth. I mean, I think ultimately flares held in hand or held without obviously becoming a projectile for the most part, are relatively safe. That's why they're used from a maritime perspective too. But they are illegal. That's the reality. I'm certainly not going to disagree with you there. Um they're illegal. There are alternatives to that. There's obviously safe smoke, the gender reveal type smoke. That smoke is for the most part, um, okay.
And potentially a space that could be considered in Fed Square is, is there a, is there a space there where safe smoke can be let off the gender reveal stuff? But again, that becomes a respiratory issue, I think as a flare, it's a starting point to know.
Alright, well you've had a big win today. Thank you for your time. Dan Birrell the CEO of Football Victoria. Well, at least he's against the flares.