England fans celebrate as pubs set to stay open longer for Norway clash
English football fans will now be able to stay longer in pubs for this Saturday’s match against Norway, the government has confirmed.
Extended licensing hours mean pubs in England and Wales can stay open until 30 minutes after the final whistle, even if the match faces delays due to extreme heat.
Ministers had previously extended the opening hours to 2am for England’s match against Norway at 10pm on Saturday at Miami, Florida’s Hard Rock Stadium; This latest move used flexible laws to allow more.
Police Minister Sarah Jones said: “England fans deserve the chance to watch every minute of the quarter-final together and our extension ensures just that.
“After the weather delay we saw before the Mexico game, we want to give fans and grounds full reassurance that no-one will miss a moment of the action.
“Hopefully pubs and bars across England and Wales will be packed on Saturday night as we move one step closer to bringing football home.”
The Three Lions’ previous match against Mexico at the host nation’s Azteca Stadium earlier on Monday was delayed an hour due to storms.
The licensing hours of the match, which England won 3-2, were extended until the early hours of the morning.
Thomas Tuchel is ready to take another big step forward as England try to overcome the heat, humidity and Erling Haaland in their quarter-final clash.
“I think we took a big step in our last game, but it was only a step,” England’s coach said. “We are still hungry, we still have dreams and we still have a big goal to strive for.
“The next step is to win the quarter-finals. It is important to look forward. We have left this match behind.
“We take the positives and our belief with us, but everything that matters is ahead of us. Tomorrow’s match.”
England will be sweating their way into the semi-finals, with the match kicking off at 5pm local time (10pm UK) with the temperature set at 32 degrees Celsius.
Tuchel’s team held its World Cup preparation camp in Florida to get used to these conditions, but played in the rain three times and under a roof in the other two matches.
“Science says we invest in too much heat training,” the German coach said. “This will benefit us.
“We’ve spent quite a few minutes in the heat this week and then we’ll go from there. For me, subjectively, it’s always ‘can you really prepare for this?’
“When we got off the plane in Miami we knew we were expecting it to be painful. Maybe we’ll still be lucky and another dark cloud will form over the stadium! And hail!”
“It was like this. But when we started this journey together in America, everything we did, how we trained, where we trained, was preparation. That’s what the science says.”
“Hopefully that gives us a slight advantage. We didn’t lose that because we took advantage of it in heat training.”
“But of course the matches were played indoors, as you said, or the weather was quite cold in Mexico, no one could have predicted this. Now the predictions are that it will be difficult. But so are our opponents.”
