Sheffield plans World Cup fan zone at Devonshire Green for England run

Sheffield City Council is preparing to turn Devonshire Green into a World Cup fan zone if England reach the quarter-finals of FIFA World Cup 2026. The plan would bring Sheffield’s biggest football celebration back to the 1.5-hectare site on Division Street, extending the city’s role in the tournament beyond the pitch.

Devonshire Green sits between Eldon Street and Fitzwilliam Street and is landscaped as an amphitheatre, a design that already supports public events in the city centre. Sheffield City Council says the space is used through the year for specialist markets, music festivals and live performances, making it one of the city’s most adaptable gathering places when crowds need to be held safely and visibly in the open air.

The fan zone would open only if England progress to the quarter-finals, but the council has already begun preparations. That puts Sheffield in line for another large-scale public screening at a moment when the 2026 tournament is drawing huge attention across three countries and has been described as the biggest World Cup in history. BBC Sport said the first week alone produced 75 goals across a jam-packed seven days, with upsets, individual brilliance and controversy adding to the pace of the competition.

For Sheffield, the appeal of Devonshire Green lies in how easily it can shift from an everyday urban space into a collective viewing point. Council publicity from a previous gathering showed a dense crowd watching a giant screen there, with supporters wearing England flags and hats, a picture of how the city centre can be transformed by a national team’s run.

The setup also underlines the civic role of football in a city like Sheffield. Rather than keeping the tournament at arm’s length, the fan zone would give residents and visitors a shared place to watch England, filling a landscaped public space that already serves markets, concerts and live performances with a different kind of public energy when the national side is still in contention.