With England through to the Euro 2024 final, plenty are wondering if the nation will get an extra bank holiday to celebrate
(Image credit: Getty Images)
England are through to the final of Euro 2024 after beating the Netherlands 2-1 in Dortmund on Wednesday night, and Three Lions supporters are beginning to wonder if there'll be a day off to celebrate the victory.
For Gareth Southgate and his players, all focus will be on preparing for Spain in the Euro 2024 final, while plenty of England fans plan how they want to watch the game and, they hope, celebrate afterwards.
But will there be a bank holiday if England win Euro 2024? FourFourTwo details everything that could happen below.
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Will there be a bank holiday if England win Euro 2024?
In reality, there's no final decision on whether there will be a bank holiday if England win the Euros or not. Some signs are promising, while others point towards tempering expectations.
The Government are ultimately responsible for calling a new or different bank holiday, and prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has offered some hope while speaking at the NATO summit in Washington, USA.
Though he stopped short of saying a bank holiday would definitely be called in case of "jinxing" the result, he did suggest that the occasion would be marked with a celebration if England were to win the European Championship.
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Starmer and Gary Neville (Image credit: Getty Images)
"We should certainly mark the occasion," Starmer said. "I went to the last Euros finals. I don't want to go through that again so I don't want to jinx anything.
"We must mark it in some way but the most important thing is getting it over the line on Sunday."
Starmer has previously called for bank holidays to celebrate the success of the England Women's team at Euro 2022. The Conservative government refused to grant that wish, however.
Now that he is the prime minister, though, the Labour leader has the power to make it happen. Indeed, he also suggested victory for the men's side in Euro 2020 would have been reason to give the nation an extra day off - perhaps giving reason as to why he's cautious now of promising a bank holiday before anything has actually happened.
Watkins fired England into the final (Image credit: Getty Images)
"The whole country is incredibly proud of what Gareth Southgate and our England heroes have achieved already," Starmer said in 2021 as England prepared for the final against Italy.
"If we win on Sunday, the country should get the chance to celebrate it properly with an extra bank holiday, granted in the name of the England team."
The Liberal Democrats have also urged Labour to grant the nation a bank holiday, with leader Sir Ed Davey wanting to highlight the potential achievement.
"The Three Lions are playing their first-ever final on foreign soil, and if they bring it home, the government should bring home a bank holiday to celebrate," Davey said. "England deserves the chance to celebrate a once-in-a-generation event."
There is a caveat to the talk of a potential bank holiday, though, and that's based on history and what Starmer has also said in the past.
Spain will play England in the final (Image credit: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP via Getty Images)
As previously mentioned, neither of England's previous football successes - neither after the 1966 World Cup or Euro 2022 - have resulted in an additional bank holiday. The current prime minister has also spoken about the detrimental effect a national day off can have on the economy while discussing St George's Day.
"I think that [a bank holiday] is both sentimental - in the sense of our history, our values our traditions - but, for me, bound up with that sense of service to our country," Starmer highlighted in April 2024.
"A bank holiday would be very nice but I think that, with the economy where it is at the moment, we have to celebrate in-and-around the work that we're doing, because we need to absolutely take our country forward."
Sir Keir Starmer will be at the Olympiastadion in Berlin for the Euro 2024 between England and Spain. Perhaps watching Harry Kane lift the trophy will persuade him to give the nation an additional day off.
Ryan is a staff writer for FourFourTwo, joining the team full-time in October 2022. He first joined Future in December 2020, working across FourFourTwo, Golf Monthly, Rugby World and Advnture's websites, before eventually earning himself a position with FourFourTwo permanently. After graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Journalism and Communications, Ryan earned a NCTJ qualification to further develop as a writer while a Trainee News Writer at Future.
