{"id":79058,"date":"2021-09-02T04:38:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T18:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/?p=79058"},"modified":"2021-09-01T20:39:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-01T10:39:53","slug":"optus-stadium-could-host-grand-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/sport\/optus-stadium-could-host-grand-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Optus Stadium could host Grand Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PERTH\u2019S Optus Stadium will host the 2021 AFL Grand Final if the MCG is unable to.<\/p>\n<p>AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has announced that Western Australia has been named as the backup plan if Victoria is ruled out due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>It has been announced this way as the AFL cannot take the Grand Final away from the MCG, they must relinquish the rights to it.<\/p>\n<p>This is expected to happen in the coming weeks as the chances of a large crowd in Melbourne lessen with each passing day.<\/p>\n<p>This will mean back-to-back Grand Finals held outside of Victoria, following last year\u2019s at the Gabba in Queensland.<\/p>\n<p>A start time for the game has not yet been confirmed.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>&#8211; BY NIC NEGREPONTIS\/ SEN<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PERTH\u2019S Optus Stadium will host the 2021 AFL Grand Final if the MCG is unable to. AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has announced that Western Australia has been named as the backup plan if Victoria is ruled out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been announced this way as the AFL cannot take the Grand [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/sport\/optus-stadium-could-host-grand-final\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":79059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-79058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Optus Stadium could host Grand Final - Ballarat Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/sport\/optus-stadium-could-host-grand-final\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Optus Stadium could host Grand Final - Ballarat Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PERTH\u2019S Optus Stadium will host the 2021 AFL Grand Final if the MCG is unable to. AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has announced that Western Australia has been named as the backup plan if Victoria is ruled out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 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