The obscure licensing power letting pubs stay open all night for England v Mexico
Key Points
- Pubs and bars in England and Wales can stay open until 5am on Monday for England v Mexico
- The match kicks off at 1am UK time on Sunday night
- The Home Secretary used Section 172 of the Licensing Act 2003, reserved for occasions of exceptional national significance
- The blanket extension removes the need for venues to apply for individual Temporary Event Notices
- Extensions were already in place for England's earlier knock-out matches kicking off up to 10pm
- Hospitality bodies including the NTIA, BBPA and UKHospitality welcomed the decision
England’s last-16 tie kicks off at 01h00 UK time, so the government has reached for a legal mechanism used only a handful of times in two decades to keep the beer flowing until 05h00.
Pubs and bars across England and Wales will be permitted to stay open until 05h00 on Monday morning for England’s World Cup last-16 match against Mexico, after the government invoked a rarely used licensing power reserved for occasions of “exceptional international, national or local significance”.
The extension, announced by Downing Street on Thursday (2 July), solves a problem unique to this tournament: a World Cup hosted across North America means kick-off times that fall in the small hours of the UK morning.
Because of the late kick-off, long after standard licensing hours end for most premises, leaving venues facing the choice of turning fans away at the door or navigating the Temporary Event Notice system one application at a time.
Instead, the Home Secretary has used Section 172 of the Licensing Act 2003, which allows licensing hours to be relaxed nationally without individual premises applying for permission.
Since the Act came into force, the power has been deployed only sparingly – for the 2011 royal wedding, the late Queen’s jubilees, the King’s coronation, and a small number of major England tournament fixtures, including the Euro 2020 and Euro 2024 finals.
Previous football-related extensions typically pushed closing time back an hour or two for evening kick-offs. A blanket 05h00 extension for a match starting at 01h00 is a different order of intervention, effectively sanctioning an all-night session and reflects how awkwardly a North American tournament sits against British licensing law, which was never drafted with transatlantic kick-offs in mind.
The government is framing the move as deregulation as much as celebration.
“Football might be coming home, but we’re making sure fans don’t have to. Pubs staying open till the final whistle is good news for supporters and good news for the pubs and venues that bring our communities together,” said Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The hospitality sector has spent years lobbying for exactly this kind of responsiveness, arguing that major sporting occasions deliver revenue spikes that struggling venues cannot afford to miss.
Michael Kill, Chief Executive of the Night Time Industries Association, called the decision “fantastic news” and said the government had “listened to the overwhelming public support for England and recognised the challenges facing pubs and licensed premises across the country”.
Emma McClarkin, Chief Executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said pubs and fans would be “over the moon”, adding: “This tournament is hugely important for our sector, so we’re delighted the government listened to our concerns and acted so quickly.”
