England football fans can now stay in pubs longer this Saturday for the match against Norway, the government has confirmed.
Extended licensing hours mean pubs in England and Wales can remain open until 30 minutes past the final whistle, even if the game faces delays due to extreme heat.
The fixture, which sees England face Norway at 10pm BST on Saturday from Miami, Florida’s Hard Rock Stadium, had previously seen ministers extend opening times until 2am, with this latest move utilising flexible laws for further allowance.
Policing minister Sarah Jones said: “England fans deserve the chance to watch every minute of the quarter-final together, and that is exactly what our extension guarantees.
“After the weather delay we saw before the Mexico game, we want to give fans and venues complete certainty that no-one will miss a moment of the action.
“I hope pubs and bars across England and Wales are packed on Saturday night, as we hopefully move one step closer to bringing football home.”
The Three Lions’ previous game against Mexico in the host country’s Azteca Stadium in the early hours of Monday was delayed by an hour because of storms.
Licensing hours were extended into the early morning for that game, which England won 3-2.
Thomas Tuchel is ready to take another big step as England look to overcome heat, humidity and Erling Haaland in their crunch quarter-final clash.
“I think we took a big step in our last match, but it was only a step,” the England boss said. “We’re still hungry, we still have dreams, and we still have a big goal to play for.
“The next step is to win the quarter-final. It’s important to look up front. We left this match behind.
“We take the positive things and the belief with us, but everything that matters is ahead of us. It’s tomorrow’s match.”
England will be made to sweat for a semi-final spot, with the temperature set to be 32 degrees Celsius when the game gets under way at 5pm local time (10pm UK).
Tuchel’s side did their World Cup preparation camp in Florida in an attempt to acclimatise to such conditions, only to end up playing in rain on three occasions and under a roof in their other two games.
“Science says that we banked a lot of heat training,” the German coach said. “That will help us.
“This week we spent quite some minutes in the heat and then we will go from there. Subjectively, for me, it’s always like ‘can you really prepare for that?’
“We knew when we stepped out of the plane in Miami, we expected it to feel painful. Maybe we are still lucky and we get another dark cloud over the stadium! And full rain!
“It was like this. But everything we did, how we trained, where we trained, when we started this journey together in America, was to prepare. That’s what science says.
“So hopefully it gives us a slight edge. We haven’t lost it because we banked it in the heat training sessions.
“But the games of course, like you said, they were indoor or in Mexico it was quite chilly actually, no-one could foresee that. Now the forecast is that it will be a tough one. But for our opponents as well.”
