How to enjoy the World Cup - and keep your boss on side

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup about to get under way, many fans in England and Scotland are honing their strategy to balance late kick-offs with work the next morning.

Matches are happening across the US, Canada and Mexico, with England's group games starting at 2100 and 2200 BST and Scotland's even later at 2300 and 0200.

Some football fans have already strategically booked annual leave around potential knockout fixtures. Others are hoping to negotiate flexible working - later starts or working from home after late-night matches.

Scotland fan Cameron Rae has already booked the Monday after the Haiti game off work so he can attend a Tartan Army fan zone at his local town hall, complete with a bar and DJ running until 4am.

Pubs will be allowed to stay open until 01:00 BST for England or Scotland matches in the knockout stages that kick off between 17:00 and 21:00 and until 02:00 for kick-offs between 21:00 and 22:00.

Rae says: "I booked the Monday off a while ago. I work in a garage and we're open as normal, so I probably wouldn't get away with flexible working."

Fellow Scotland fan Krys Kujawa, a business analyst, thinks he can survive the late-nights without needing days off work - just about.

"Haiti is early Sunday morning so there's still all of Sunday to recover," he says. "Morocco is late Friday night so you can just stay up and sleep in on Saturday. Brazil is the difficult one - that's coffee-your-way-through-work territory."