{"id":681108,"date":"2026-07-08T21:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T21:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/681108\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T21:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T21:31:16","slug":"england-to-get-bank-holiday-if-team-win-world-cup-starmer-expected-to-announce-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/681108\/","title":{"rendered":"England to get bank holiday if team win World Cup, Starmer expected to announce | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer is planning to announce a bank holiday if England win the World Cup, the Guardian understands, to celebrate the men\u2019s national team finally bringing football home.<\/p>\n

The prime minister stopped short of announcing a date, saying he didn\u2019t want to jinx England\u2019s progress towards lifting the famous trophy for the first time since 1966 \u2013 but it would most likely be on Friday 24 July.<\/p>\n

The date would allow Thomas Tuchel\u2019s victorious team time to return from the final \u2013 to be played on Sunday 19 July in New Jersey \u2013 and the Football Association a few days to arrange an open-top bus parade through central London.<\/p>\n

As England prepare for their quarter-final clash with Norway in Miami<\/a> on Saturday, their chances of reaching the final are rising. If they beat Norway, England are likely to face Argentina \u2013 the current world champions \u2013 in the semi-finals. France are the favourites to win the tournament.<\/p>\n

Starmer, who would be expected to travel to the United States for the final if England make it, would no longer be in office by the time of the celebrations, leaving it to his expected successor, Andy Burnham, to welcome captain Harry Kane and his teammates to No 10 to mark the occasion.<\/p>\n

Asked about the prospect, Starmer said: \u201cOn the question of a bank holiday, I think I don\u2019t want to jinx it, but ask me again if we get to the final.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downing Street insiders indicated that he would announce a day off if England won.<\/p>\n

Starmer revealed that he had received multiple requests asking him to approach Fifa \u2013 as Donald Trump had done for the US team \u2013 to overturn the red card defender Jarell Quansah was given in the match against Mexico<\/a>, but said that he had declined to do so.<\/p>\n

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He did, however, intervene through diplomatic channels to oppose Fifa\u2019s plan to bring forward England\u2019s game against Mexico, amid concerns the change would hand the hosts an unfair advantage. The match eventually went ahead at the planned time.<\/p>\n

After talks with Norway\u2019s prime minister, Jonas Gahr St\u00f8re, at the Nato summit in Ankara, Starmer said that while the relationship between the two countries was \u201cas strong as it\u2019s ever been \u2026 for 90 minutes on Saturday evening, we\u2019ll have to go our different ways\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer is planning to announce a bank holiday if England win the World Cup, the Guardian understands,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-681108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}