Gerard Waitley

Now that decision has been overruled by our Premier, Gerard Jacinta Allen, who has released a statement today.

Please read that statement to us.

Headline, see you at Fed Square for the World Cup.

Yesterday, Melbourne Arts Precinct decided that Fed Square won't show Socceroos matches on the big screen.

I disagree with that decision and I am overturning it.

The government will ensure Fed Square has the support it needs to put on the matches this year.

Now, the Arts Precinct had said a small minority had ruined it for everyone else, had been damaged to the precinct and behaviour that simply was not tolerable.

So that was the reasoning behind the decision.

Jacinda went on to say...

We're also looking at additional events and live sites so Victorians have more options to watch.

Now more than ever, people deserve more free stuff to do together in the city.

And then comes a sentence I'm not sure we've ever seen from a Premier in a statement before, Gerard.

There's always a risk of bad behaviour from a few dickheads at every public gathering.

But police and security will be on site and there'll be zero tolerance for it.

The World Cup should bring us together, not keep us apart.

Good luck, Socceroos.

Victoria is behind you.

Yes.

So I think the right decision in the end, for what it's worth, I thought it was an extraordinary overreaction and really that gets into a bigger picture of where our state and our city might be at with everything going on at the moment and issues with crime that we do have to strip this away from football fans and fans of sport in general was insane.

But the right decision's been made, albeit with a pretty jarring initial ban and then a jarring statement just there from the Premier.