Tesco - football final

I love it..

I was so chuffed when my employer emailed to say we could leave at 4.30 to get home for the 5pm group stage match. It felt such a treat.

Yeah it's a great time to go shopping

@Plump82 I didn't know that! I thought it was the whole of the UK with restricted Sunday trading due to the size of the shop, now I see it only applies to England & Wales 👍

I was in M&S last week, thinking it was peacefully quiet - turned out England were playing - if I end up being practically the only customer and it was only (I think) the last of the group stages, I can imagine supermarkets on Sunday evening would be deserted.

While I think it’s a nice gesture of Tesco, I’d like to know if they did the same for the lionesses when they were in the final? Or is it only when the men’s team play they close the stores?

No-one is going to turn up anyway @countvoncount !

My DH is on late shift - midday to 10pm for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week, and is off Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (by default.) And the people working Sunday, - midday to 10pm - have BEGGED him to cover for them.

He's refusing, and he's not even a massive footie fan. He (like many others) gets into it/excited by it when England start to do well, and is looking forward to it! (Same as me!) I reckon they will ring in sick!

I'm forgetting that. Im in Scotland where they're open till midnight.

It's to ensure staff don't pull a sickie for the whole shift, too.

I imagine that that the uk being religiously diverse, there will always be custom throughout Xmas etc, but with football it’s universally enjoyed so they would be spending more money to run the shop on energy bills and staff wages than what they would earn due to many people watching the match

@Plump82 The game is on Sunday, and starts at 8pm. Due to Sunday trading laws in the UK, larger stores are only allowed to open for 6 hours, which are usually one of 10am-4pm, 11am-5pm or 12-6pm.

All big shops are always closed by 6pm on Sunday, so given they are ordinarily not open at 8pm on a Sunday anyway, it makes no difference to them.

To put it into context, this is the first time ever the England Men's team have reached a final of a major competition that's not on home soil.

It's only 16 years ago the team didn't even qualify for the finals.

Good on Tesco who also own One Stop and the others who have made the decision. There's a discount shop we occasionally go to that's closed early for each game.
Our local Jewellers is closed when Liverpool play at home

Aaaaah that's a great move by Tesco!

There's plenty of us that like football, and even more people who just like to follow England in big tournaments. Getting to the Final is a big achievement - we managed it in 2020 but that was the first time in 55 years! Getting to a successive Euros Final is amazing. We can only hope that this time we get a better result....!!

Honestly, it's one night. Literally just a couple of hours or so. Even if you absolutely hate football you can let football fans enjoy the occasions without finding a way to pick holes?! It seems very churlish to be complaining about something that allows people to enjoy a big event?!

Even though I'm sure there was a commercial aspect to this decision too, the more employers recognise that they employ humans and treat them with kindness, the more likely they are to find they have loyal employees and a better working environment. Surely it's a win-win?!

It's on Sunday so the big stores will be closed early anyway

To be fair, it’s not all Tesco stores as they will be closed at 4/5pm being Sunday hours, so it’s just the expresses and therefore a smaller amount of staff being paid for probably 3 hours. Excellent goodwill and PR

Also - literally NO one out today in my business or the supermarkets - was really quiet for a Thursday. Purely down to football last night

Number of people in England who follow football
Number of people in England who follow Christianity

Which one do you think is higher?

Good on Tesco

Are they not paying them? If so they should be given the option to work. Not everyone can afford to lose money

It's also only the Express stores, so all the other types are open as normal.

This^
And however annoying it’s for you it seems your DH is delighted?

Marketing

My local the same...the head office knows no one will be shopping..win win for them...

People saying 'we all don't like football' I work at a major shopping centre. On Saturday night after 5pm the place was deserted. We thought we'd pick up the non football fan customers but literally 2 people walked through my doors between 5 and 9 when we shut. This isn't usual. There is usually quite a few people still milling about on a Saturday evening.

So seems a huge amount of people do stay at home to watch the matches.

here's my AIBU, they have normal opening hours on Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday etc etc

As a practicing pagan, I feel injured that Tesco do not open at 4am of the Summer Solstice so I can buy some mead. All these new-fangled supreme being ceremonies and kicking plastic spheres around are what's wrong with our flat planet these days. Folk have too much time on their hands, when they should be dragging sarsen stones, wrestling goats' organs, roasting oxen, and other shit.

I would never have thought of it like this! You make a very valid point!

There's a lot of businesses closing early. I know John Bishop has changed his scheduled Sunday evening show to Sunday afternoon.

I’m not a football fan, but I don’t find this bizarre. Men’s football is the most popular sport in England by quite some way. International tournaments always draw a lot of attention, and England being in the final is a big deal to a lot of people. The reason that it’s not closed for Wimbledon is most people don’t care enough to make it worthwhile. And regular scheduling will never be cancelled for my favourite sport (gymnastics) because even fewer people care.

I assume they’ve weighed up how many people will mysteriously have a sickness bug or Covid on a Sunday evening and that most won’t be shopping anyway. Around Christmas is a huge shopping time. Sitting sporting events isn’t. I don’t think the comparison to Christmas is equivalent as Christmas happens each year and those with jobs who require seasonal working set up rotas for it and often base next year’s allocation on this year. But for the football, there’s no trade off equivalent to “I’ll take Christmas Eve, you take NYD” or “I’ll take that next year” because there’s not another date this final will be played. If it made commercial sense to close for another final (as it does for this) I’m sure they would.