A Labour Party government source said that the World Cup was certain to be declared an “occasion of exceptional national significance”.
07:51, 04 Oct 2025Updated 10:19, 05 Oct 2025
New two-hour rule for pubs in England set to be introduced
UK pubs are set to stay open until 1am for World Cup late kick-offs. Bars are expected to extend trading hours next summer as England matches could begin as late as 2am under Fifa’s plans to combat extreme heat in North America,
Fifa are expected to schedule some matches, to start at 11pm or even 2am. A Labour Party government source said that the World Cup was certain to be declared an “occasion of exceptional national significance”.
This would allow pubs and bars that are usually obliged to close at 11pm to stay open for an extra two hours without needing to apply for special permission.
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Victor Montagliani, a Fifa vice-president and president of the Concacaf organisation that covers the host nations, said earlier this week: “On the kick-off times, lessons have been learnt. Heat is always an issue in our region because the summers are hot.
“Our media guys are in those conversations daily with European media, with other world media, in terms of what’s best.”.
Montagliani, who is also the president of Concacaf, the confederation that covers North and Central America and the Caribbean, was speaking after the US president said this week he would move matches out of cities if he thought they could be “even a little bit dangerous for the World Cup”.
“It’s Fifa’s tournament, Fifa’s jurisdiction, Fifa makes those decisions,” the Canadian said to an audience at The Summit, part of Leaders Week London.
“With all due respect to current world leaders, football is bigger than them and football will survive their regime and their government and their slogans.”
He said: “I respect that it’s a decision by Uefa. It’s their member, they have to deal with it and I respect not only the appropriate process, but whatever decision they make.
“Fifa get asked to deal with a lot of things by a lot of organisations, but first and foremost it’s a member of Uefa. No different than when I have to deal with a member of my region for whatever reason.”
“I don’t see the argument for 64 teams,” he said. “It’s not just us but Uefa and Asia who are opposed to that. But the Club World Cup was a massive success.
“We need to work out what’s feasible, [what] changes we need to make about the number of teams and the caps on each country we had for this year.”