British bars and pubs are already counting the costs of England's early football World Cup exit, their expectations of a bumper summer dashed by the team's failure to make it through the tournament's first round.
England's World Cup performance had been expected to add millions of pounds to the British economy as fans packed out watering holes for live match screenings and a wave of consumer goodwill swept the high street.
But now smaller business owners' dreams of a lucrative summer have been ruined by England's worst World Cup performance since 1958.
Many of Britain's bars and pubs have also been left out of pocket and struggling to recover costly investments in new TVs and lavish decorations made in a bid to attract fans.
Had England made it past the World Cup's first round group stage, that would have been worth $NZ350 million to Britain's bars, pubs and restaurants within a $NZ2 billion pound consumer spending spree, according to a report by the Centre for Retail Research.
