Fed Square’s Socceroos snub is a win for killjoys, and a painful defeat for everyone else |
Fed Square’s Socceroos snub is a win for killjoys, and a painful defeat for everyone else
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The scenes of a heaving Federation Square during the last FIFA World Cup in Qatar, as thousands turned out in the early hours of the morning to cheer on the Socceroos during their run to the round of 16, showed the rest of the world a side to Australia that they often don’t see: we are a real football nation. We feel it. We get it.
The decision to not screen the Socceroos’ games there during next month’s World Cup, citing the behaviour of a handful of troublemakers, shows a different side of our national character: we are also a nation of killjoys. We feel nothing, and we don’t get it.
How else to interpret the move by the Melbourne Arts Precinct, the body responsible for Federation Square, to deny us all our right to a dose of communal euphoria, because of a couple of bad apples?
What is the point of Fed Square, and other public sites like it around the country, if not exactly this?
A lot has happened in the past four years, so it’s easy to forget how spine-tingling it all was in 2022. Footage of........