World Cup sickos are planning to call out sick to watch the World Cup
· Business Insider
David Jensen; Elizabeth Ruiz Ruiz/Getty Image; Alyssa Powell/BI
The other week, a friend who shall remain nameless for soon-to-be-obvious reasons texted me a proposal: "Should we plan some potential World Cup sick days?" The message came accompanied by a screenshot of a match that may be play-hooky-from-work-worthy. We decided against it because the tickets in question were over $1,000 each. If prices drop as the event gets closer — and man oh man are a lot of people hoping they will — we will be taking time off.
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I'm not being delinquent. Business Insider has unlimited PTO, which I use almost embarrassingly sparingly, and I'm always sure to give my bosses a heads-up when I'm going to be out. I'm also not the only one eyeing the FIFA calendar — a lot of workplaces should prepare for some disruptions when the World Cup arrives in June. From June 11 to July 19, the world will turn its attention to 104 global Super Bowls, many of which take place during the workday.
Bosses are already planning for traffic jams and tangled commutes in host cities. Employers across the country should also be ready for many workers to watch games while they're on the clock — whether on the sly or because the higher-ups rolled out TVs. By one estimate, all this soccer-watching will lead to dips in productivity that could cost businesses $4.5 billion in the US alone. The die-hard fans and lucky ticketholders are taking paid time off to see matches. Some workers might even catch a case of World Cup fever and do a "Cough, cough, I'm sick," when the truth is, "Cough, cough, I got last-minute tickets to the Argentina-Austria game in Dallas."
Exactly how much interruption companies can expect depends on a variety of factors — geography, culture, industry. Work essentially comes to a standstill in Brazil when its national team plays. Mexico, one of this year's host countries, floated the idea of ending the school year early for the World Cup but, after some backlash, ultimately decided against it. Workers in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom often get flexibility from their employers during the event. Scotland preemptively declared a bank holiday the Monday after its team's opening match, assuming many of its citizens will spend match day celebrating the country's first World Cup appearance since 1998.
Historically, Americans haven't been the biggest soccer fans, but the World Cup on their home turf means more of them plan to tune in. Recent YouGov surveys have found that 14% of American adults say they would give up time to watch and follow the event, compared to 8% four years ago. Nearly half of American sports fans say the US hosting the tournament is a major reason they plan to watch.
From June 11 to July 19, the world will turn its attention to 104 global Super Bowls.
Some of that watching, inevitably, will happen during work — you may have noticed a coworker streaming a game or two during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (or may have been that miscreant yourself).
A survey from workforce software provider UKG of 8,000 workers across eight countries — Australia, Germany, the UK, France, the US, Mexico, Canada, and the Netherlands — found that a third of workers say they'll likely take at least one day off because of the World Cup and a quarter expect to miss part of a workday. Twenty-five percent of workers said they will "push the limits" of what their managers would tolerate on the matter, and 37% said they will try to adjust their work schedules around the event. Managers were actually more likely to say they planned to engage in some World Cup-related finagling.
"Managers feel, probably, a higher degree of freedom," says Suresh Vittal, chief product officer at UKG.
There was variation by country. Forty-two percent of Mexican workers say they expected to take at least a day off for the tournament, compared with 23% of Dutch respondents. More than a third of Americans said they would miss part of a day compared to a quarter of Germans, and a whopping 52% of Brits said the country whose team wins should get a national holiday to celebrate.
It's not only workday games people are adjusting to — it's also time zones. James Lewis, 37, who works in customer service in the United Kingdom, is a true World Cup devotee: he plans to watch every single match if he can. Because of time differences, many of the games will be overnight, so this bold goal requires him to make some serious adjustments. He is set to take the first two weeks of the tournament off from work entirely. "I can stay up through the night and then just sleep," he says. "Otherwise, I'd be a zombie at work."
He's also taken the day of the final off in case England wins the whole thing. "I'm going to be celebrating if that happens," he says. He can always reverse course on the time-off request if they get knocked out, though he might not. "I'll just not go to work and get over my misery of losing," he says.
Host countries — the US, Mexico, and Canada — could see elevated levels of worker absenteeism. After all, millions of Americans skip out on the day after the Super Bowl, and Canada and Mexico can see work disruptions around major hockey and soccer games.
There's soccer-related precedent, too. HR and payroll platform Deel found that Germans used more sick time when Germany hosted the UEFA European Championship in the summer of 2024 compared to 2025, and sick rates peaked the day after the tournament ended. The pattern didn't occur in non-host countries. Lauren Thomas, Deel's in-house economist, says the trend may be deeper than invented ailments, it could also be from actual illness. Visitors converging on Germany were "bringing new germs along with them." Millions of people gathering in stadiums, bars, and public transportation are sure to spread some illness. "People are going to these huge crowds, and therefore a lot of them are probably getting sick," Thomas says.
Some people may look for extra-creative ways to maneuver around work. Heineken recently launched a "fan volunteers" campaign, which encourages workers to take advantage of their employers' volunteer time-off benefits — during World Cup games. Through Heineken's portal, people can sign up for volunteer opportunities during normal working hours that the company says will "possibly" allow them to watch soccer together while giving back. Essentially, you can get out of work by volunteering and watching sports on the TV at the same time. It's a sneaky move but maybe a savvy one, at least for a day. I attended one such Heineken-sponsored event in Brooklyn in early May, where volunteers bagged hundreds of meals for the local nonprofit Broadway Community while the UEFA Champions League semi-finals played in the background. A brass band even played at halftime, which I don't think will happen at the other volunteer events.
Most workers aren't aware of the VTO perk, says Guilherme de Marchi Retz, vice president of marketing for Heineken, and should ask their employers if they offer it. "Heineken is shedding light on something and suggesting you to use that VTO to volunteer to make the world better while watching a game," he says.
The World Cup represents a disturbance for the workplace that leaders have to manage, like it or not.
If workers do suspiciously call in sick, there's not much companies can do to confirm that's actually the case.
Marissa Mastroianni, an employment attorney at Cole Schotz in New Jersey, tells me the "commute issue" is top of mind for many clients. Eleven American cities are hosting games, along with three in Mexico and two in Canada. In those areas, travel snags are inevitable on game days. "To the extent you can allow people to work from home on those days, that would be great," she says. The alternative is people showing up late or leaving early because of traffic, so they're more likely to be more productive if they're at home working. For companies that can't offer work-from-home, Mastroianni suggests arranging on-site meals or even shuttles for employees who need to move between locations throughout the day. "The main focus is the travel situation," she says.
If workers do suspiciously call in sick, there's not much companies can do to confirm that's actually the case. Many states have laws dictating when firms can — and can't — ask for doctors' notes. "In New Jersey, for example, it's got to be three or more consecutive days of being off before you can ask for a note. In New York, it's more than three days," Mastroianni says. "So employers really are going to probably be struggling a little bit with the calling out issue."
To be sure, it's not all bad. Employers may be able to use the World Cup as a team-building opportunity and "really embrace it," says Lindsay Bousman, vice president of culture and talent success at Dayforce, an HR software company. The value of bringing people together for a match "outlasts what might be two hours out of their day," she says.
On the logistics side, it's important for companies to plan around potential absences and dislocations sooner rather than later. Vittal, from UKG, says managers can start asking employees about swapping shifts, nudge workers to make time-off asks early, and offer perks to those who raise their hands to work on days people are asking off.
Sports are mass cultural events meant to bring people together. The World Cup is the contest that accomplishes that at a truly global scale: It encompasses teams from 48 countries, and FIFA estimates some six billion people will engage with it or watch it. Of course, something of that scale is going to cause some workplace disarray.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
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