Whether it is possible for employees to watch a game during working hours will depend on the employer. In general, some organisations allow employees to watch the most important games from their cell phones or computers. Other employers provide a meeting room with TV for some special games or the finals. 

In the Czech Republic there is no official or unofficial holiday related to the World Cup. 

In France, an employee does what s/he has to do, sacking them for watching a World Cup match on working time would not be proportionate. 

A sanction would be appropriate if the employee has failed to do his or her job: if, for example, s/he missed an appointment, or did not pick up the phone. In extreme cases an employer may be justified in terminating employment in these circumstances, but not necessarily. To avoid conflicts, employees could raise the issue with their employer and try to arrange their working time to fit around matches.  

If employees watch the match during a break, whether they are at work or not, they are free to do what they want with break time.   

In terms of celebrating with an alcoholic drink, any festivities should only take place at the employer’s initiative. This does involve some risk: if employees choose to continue celebrating outside of work and an accident happens, it may be difficult to prove that it was not caused by excessive alcohol consumption in the workplace. 

However, as a rule, the football World Cup is viewed a special occasion. It is not uncommon for employers to provide televisions and flexible working hours for their employees. 

From a purely labour law point of view, the answer is simple: at this World Cup, many matches are taking place during working hours. During working hours, the employee is obliged to fulfil his or her contractual duties. The employee does not have a right to paid time off from work to watch the match, the same applies to a right to unpaid time off. The situation is different, if the employee has flexible working time and the match takes place during the flexible part of his or her working time. Employee are also not permitted to run a live stream of the football match while working. In practice, however, the picture is often different: employers often offer employees the opportunity to watch games live during working hours in the office (as, for example, we do…) 

The period during the World Cup in Greece is not considered a holiday, not even unofficially. Employers are obliged to pay the employees their regular salary, while employees must work. No special treatment can be justified: employees cannot be discharged from work and are not entitled to any additional breaktime or time off. 

Employees in Ireland are not entitled to any time off to watch World Cup matches. Many employers stream the matches in the office (but some have chosen not to on account of sensitivities around the host country). 

In Mexico, national team World Cup matches are also an unofficial holiday. Many employers anticipate that they will stop work to show the match and serve snacks and drinks; this not only promotes attendance and avoids distractions that could cause occupational risks, but it is also considered an element of ‘emotional salary’. Likewise, to foster camaraderie, employers allow employees to organise betting pools and permit employees to bring their jerseys.  

Only one Polish national team match at the World Cup was played at a time when many people were normally working or were about to finish their work: the match against Mexico. It was not common, but some employers organised special ‘fan zones’ in offices, providing snacks and drinks.  

In Spain, we are not at the Brazilian level of granting time off to watch national team football games, but a certain degree of leniency is applied in the event of temporary abandonment of daily work during matches. That is precisely what the High Court of Justice of Comunidad Valenciana ruled in a case (7 July 2022) where some workers extended their rest break by an additional 15 minutes.  

Although this was wrong, the Tribunal understood that penalising such minor misconduct with dismissal was disproportionate and that a more minor sanction should have been imposed. ‘Gradualist’ theory issued by the Supreme Court should have been followed especially considering the employees in question had no prior employment sanctions in their personnel files, that no complaint was raised or loss suffered by the client and, last but not least, no work was left uncompleted when they were surprised by their boss watching the football game of Spain match against Switzerland in the South African World Cup (which, by the way, Spain eventually won!).  

There is no leave given to employees in Turkey or official or unofficial holiday practice across the country due to the Word Cup. 

Needless to say, there is no general practice of or requirement for employers to allow employees time off to watch matches, although for many years a lot of employers have done this informally for fear of disgruntlement if they don’t. However, in the UK, and particularly in big diverse cities like London, this does not always mean the same matches: just among British people there are supporters of both England and Wales, and in the wider community many, many teams have support, so the message tends to be ‘you can watch the match of the team you support’, not ‘the England game’, and there are concerns about discrimination arguments if you don’t do this. On the subject of discrimination, last summer when the England men reached the Euro final, many employers said they would give staff a day off if they won (they lost); that meant that this summer they felt they had little choice but to offer the same thing when the England women reached their Euro final, and won…   

However, the Qatar Wolrd Cup has introduced an interesting new dimension: we at Lewis Silkin (and many employers taking the same approach), are officially boycotting the tournament, meaning that our Management Committee, encouraged by the Diversity & Inclusion Committee, put out a statement saying that due to concerns about human rights we would not have any screens showing matches, or social events celebrating the tournament, even down to the sweepstake being cancelled. While of course what employees do in their own time is up to them, football fans have been asked to be respectful of the fact that many people are actively opposed to this event.