North America is a big place and the World Cup will be hosted across 16 cities, spanning four time zones and three countries, at locations up to 2,800 miles apart. All of that, plus the heat at that time of the year, provided an additional layer of complication when it came to deciding kick-off times. There are also 05:00 BST games in Vancouver (Australia versus European Play-Off C winner on Saturday, 13 June) and Guadalupe, Mexico (Tunisia versus Japan on Saturday, 20 June). In total there will be 35 group-stage games that kick-off between 00:00 BST and 05:00 BST, which is almost half of the 72 fixtures for that stage of the tournament. The most common kick-off time is 20:00 BST, with 12 group-stage games taking place then.

Source: The Times December 07, 2025 19:20 UTC