James Johnson Australia New Zealand Melbourne Football FIFA cup Message James Johnson Australia New Zealand Melbourne

Crowd crackdown to send right message before women's World Cup -Australia boss

channelnewsasia.com

MELBOURNE : Football Australia (FA) boss James Johnson has said strong and decisive sanctions against the A-League fans involved in a violent pitch invasion will send the right message ahead of the women's soccer World Cup.The local game's image suffered a blow last Saturday when more than 100 fans stormed onto the pitch during the Melbourne Victory-Melbourne City game, injuring several people, including City goalkeeper Tom Glover and referee Alex King.Police have charged over a dozen people in relation to the incident while governing body FA banned two for life and is mulling sanctions against Victory.The crowd trouble has embarrassed Australia in the lead-up to co-hosting the World Cup next year with New Zealand."It's strong and decisive action that needs to be taken," Johnson told Australia's ABC on Wednesday."Strong sanctions against individuals, strong sanctions against clubs on behalf of their purported fans."That sends not only the right message to the local community but it certainly sends the right message to FIFA, to AFC (Asian Football Confederation) and to the millions of people, the billions of people I should say, that will watch the women's World Cup when it comes here in July, 2023."Johnson said Victory could lose championship points or play its remaining home games at closed stadiums.The pitch invasion came in the wake of the A-League's unpopular decision to sell the rights to host its title-deciding Grand Finals for both the men's and women's competitions to Sydney through to 2025.With Grand Finals traditionally hosted by the top-finishing teams, the move triggered an intense fan backlash and was condemned by former players and media pundits.Johnson said the A-League needed more dialogue with fans to

Related News
Akhona Makalima is set to fly the South African flag high at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup as she has been selected as one of the officials for the tournament. 
The six female match officials who worked at the men's World Cup in Qatar including history maker Stephanie Frappart were also selected Monday by FIFA for the 2023 Women's World Cup, which will have 13 men in the video review team.
SYDNEY : Australia coach Dave Rennie has bluntly ruled out any involvement in the Wallabies set up for Eddie Jones ahead of this year's World Cup in France.
Defending champions South Africa will confront greatest rivals New Zealand twice in the build-up to the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.
RAMALLAH: FIFA has chosen Palestinian international referee Heba Saadia to officiate the Women’s World Cup matches in 2023, Palestine News and Information Agency reported on Sunday. 
Football Australia said on Friday it has barred Melbourne Victory from selling tickets for their home matches until mid-January in the wake of a violent pitch invasion during the abandoned Melbourne derby.

Latest News

Change privacy settings
This page might use cookies if your analytics vendor requires them.