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23rd June 2010

The UK economy stands to lose £1.4 billion if the England football team crash out of the World Cup against Slovenia today.

High street stores, supermarkets, manufacturers and pubs could all lose out if the national football team does not qualify to the next round.

The figure is an estimate of what fans would have spent had England reached the final of the World Cup.

This year’s event has been poor for pubs in particular as a result of the performances of the England team.

Sue Colman runs The Stanley in Norwich, and bought a large flat-screen television specifically for the competition.

She said it had not made the slightest bit of difference to her revenue, even during England games: “I got it the day before and thought it’d be a great month.

“But I’ve not noticed a change in sales really. People have come to watch it, but they’re coming to watch the games instead of coming at another time of the week, not as well as coming then.

“The weather has probably had more of an effect on custom.”

Pubs in rural parts of Norfolk have suffered more as more people choose to buy alcohol from the supermarket and watch games at home.

Though further footballing failure would not affect everyone.

John Longhorn owns the Horseshoes Inn in Billingford. He has a sign outside his pub advertising it as a ‘Football Free Zone.’

He said: “I thought that [the World Cup] probably could have brought a little bit more money in this month.

“But I didn’t want the type of people that watch those matches coming in here and ruining the atmosphere.

“I’ve actually had a number of customers come up and say how glad they are to go somewhere that won’t show the World Cup.”