Holding hands, the beaming couple were unable to hold back their smiles on what should have been the happiest day of their lives. 

But unbeknownst to newlyweds Haneen and Revan, this was to be their final picture together before a raging inferno swept through their Christian wedding in Iraq today.

The young couple are feared to have been killed along with at least 110 of their wedding guests after the blaze, believed to have been started by fireworks, tore through the large hall in the northern town of Qaraqosh near Mosul.

Those who survived the inferno have described it as ‘hell’ with children as young as eight months old and entire families – including a couple and their three-year-old child – among the dead.

‘This was not a wedding. This was hell,’ said Mariam Khedr, crying and hitting herself as she waited for officials to return the bodies of her daughter Rana Yakoub, 27, and three young grandchildren – the youngest being eight months old. 

Video purportedly shows the newlyweds slow-dancing in the hall moments before the blaze tore through the large hall in the Christian town, which had survived ISIS occupation. 

Hanneen, wearing a large white wedding dress, turns around in horror to see flames rapidly climbing the walls before burning material falls from the roof. 

Chaos ensues, with the up to 900 panicked guests rushing towards the exits as the hall is engulfed in flames and filled with toxic smoke in seconds. Survivors said many were left trapped in the burning building as they couldn’t see through the black smoke. 

The bride and groom were among the more than 100 people killed in the deadly blaze according to health officials, while 150 more are injured – 50 critically. But there are conflicting reports about their wellbeing, with some others saying the couple were injured rather than killed in the blaze. 

Nineveh province Deputy Governor Hassan al-Allaf said 113 people had been confirmed dead whilst the head of the province’s Red Crescent branch said the death toll was not final but that it ‘exceeds hundreds injured and dozens killed’. 

‘I lost my daughter, her husband and their 3 year-old. They were all burned. My heart is burning,’ a woman said outside the morgue, where bodies lay outside in bags as vehicles came to collect those that had been identified. 

A man called Youssef stood nearby with burns covering his hands and face. He said he had not been able to see anything when the fire began and the power cut out. He had grabbed his 3 year-old grandson and managed to get out.

But his wife, Bashra Mansour, in her 50s, did not make it. She fell in the chaos and died.

Hundreds of wedding guests, many of them children, were rushed to hospital with severe burns across their bodies, with many fighting for their lives. 

Wedding guest Rania Waad, who sustained a burn to her hand, said that as Haneen and Revan ‘were slow dancing, the fireworks started to climb to the ceiling and the whole hall went up in flames’. 

‘We couldn’t see anything,’ the 17-year-old said, choking back sobs. ‘We were suffocating, we didn’t know how to get out.’ 

Other wedding guests also said that the blaze was caused by fireworks, which had been set off during the first dance.

A man injured in the fire, speaking from his hospital bed, said: ‘They lit up fireworks. It hit the ceiling, which caught fire. The entire hall was on fire in seconds.’ 

Witnesses said the wedding hall caught fire at around 10.45pm local time (8.45pm UK time) during the couple’s first dance. 

Video shows wedding guests dancing together before the newlyweds walked onto the dance floor. 

Harrowing footage shows Haneen resting her head against Revan while he holds her waist as they share their first dance. But within minutes, the wedding turned into a nightmare as the blaze broke out, sending shards of burning material to the ground around them. 

Panicked guests began running out of the burning building, but over 100 were trapped inside and died of burns and smoke inhalation. 

‘We saw the fire pulsating, coming out of the hall. Those who managed got out and those who didn’t got stuck,’ said Imad Yohana, a 34-year-old who escaped the inferno.

Chaotic scenes were seen outside the building, with screaming guests crying for help from medics who had quickly arrived on the scene. 

Injured wedding guests were later seen lying in hospital beds with bandages covering the burns they sustained in the horrific blaze. 

Ahmed Dubardani, a health official in the province, said: ‘The majority of them were completely burned and some others had 50 to 60 per cent of their bodies burned. 

‘This is not good at all. The majority of them were not in good condition.’

In the blaze’s aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as emergency crews sifted through the scene of utter devastation. 

While there is no official word on the cause of the blaze, footage showed fireworks shooting up from the floor of the event and setting a chandelier aflame, which echoes the testimony of injured wedding guests. 

This was made worse by the wedding hall’s exterior being decorated with ‘highly flammable’ cladding that is illegal in Iraq, civil defence officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency said.

The danger was compounded by the ‘release of toxic gases linked to the combustion of the panels’, which contained plastic, they said. 

‘The fire caused some parts of the ceiling to fall due to the use of highly flammable, low-cost construction materials,’ the civil defence authorities said, with ‘preliminary information’ suggesting fireworks were to blame for the blaze. 

The Interior Ministry said it had issued four arrest warrants for the owners of the wedding hall, state media reported, and President Abdul Latif Rashid called for an investigation. 

Three people who attended the wedding said the hall appeared poorly equipped for the disaster with no visible fire extinguishers, few exits, and draped in flammable material that one said lit ‘like petrol’. Fire fighters arrived 30 minutes after the blaze began, they said.

Most residents of Qaraqosh, which is mostly Christian but also home to some members of Iraq’s Yazidi minority, fled the town when Islamic State seized it in 2014. But they returned after the group was ousted in 2017.

At Mar Youhanna church, where the wedding service took place before the evening party, deacon Hani al-Kasmousa said prayers for the dead would take place at the cemetery because there was not enough room in the church for so many mourners.

‘Yesterday there was a wedding and happiness. Now we are preparing their burial,’ he said, new coffins stacked along an alleyway near his church.

Father Rudi Saffar Khoury, a priest at the wedding, said it was unclear who was to blame for the fire.

‘It could be a mistake by the event organisers or venue hosts, or maybe a technical error,’ Khoury said. ‘It was a disaster in every sense of the word.’

Najim al-Jubouri, the provincial governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned there were no final casualty figures yet from the blaze, which suggests the death toll still may rise. 

Anger is simmering in the area after it emerged that the exterior of the wedding hall had been covered in the illegal cladding. 

It wasn’t immediately clear why authorities in Iraq allowed the cladding to be used on the hall, though corruption and mismanagement remains endemic two decades after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say those that have caught fire at the wedding hall and elsewhere weren’t designed to meet stricter safety standards and often were put onto buildings without any breaks to slow or halt a possible blaze. 

That includes the 2017 Grenfell Fire in London that killed 72 people in the greatest loss of life in a fire on British soil since World War II, as well as multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.

Safety standards in Iraq’s construction sector are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, is often the scene of fatal fires and accidents.

In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.

And in April of the same year, exploding oxygen tanks triggered a fire at a hospital in Baghdad – also dedicated to Covid patients – that killed more than 80 people.

Like many Christian towns in the Nineveh Plains, northeast of Mosul, Qaraqosh was ransacked by jihadists of the Islamic State group in 2014.

Qaraqosh and its churches were slowly rebuilt after the group was ousted in 2017, and Pope Francis visited the town in March 2021.

•  Daicos says players get 8 tickets to the grand final
•  Pies boss calls for Ticketek to ‘improve system’
•  This weekend’s AFL grand final is a sellout

By NCA NewsWire and James Cooney For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 02:58 EDT, 25 September 2023 | Updated: 03:55 EDT, 25 September 2023

Some 10,000 people are still missing in Libya after ‘catastrophic’ floods obliterated entire neighbourhoods, with officials warning the death toll is ‘huge’ and could end up in the thousands. 

Mediterranean storm Daniel hit the county on Sunday night and wreaked havoc and flash flooding in towns across in eastern Libya but the worst hit was Derna, where heavy rainfall broke dams and washed away entire communities.

There are still areas that rescuers are struggling to reach in the city and many of the thousands who are missing there are believed to have been carried away by the fast-paced and churning waters after two upstream dams burst.

‘The situation is catastrophic,’ said Othman Abduljaleel, the health minister in Libya’s eastern government. ‘The bodies are still lying on the ground in many parts (of the city). Hospitals are filled with bodies. And there are areas we have yet to reach.’

Authorities estimated earlier that as many as 2,000 people may have perished in Derna alone. The Ambulance and Emergency Authority, which coordinates search and rescue efforts, said about 2,300 people died in Derna but did not clarify what that figure was based on.

Tamer Ramadan, Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said 10,000 people were missing after the unprecedented flooding. 

‘Our teams on the ground are still doing their assessment (but) from what we see and from the news coming to us, the death toll is huge,’ he told reporters in Geneva via video link from Tunis.

‘It might reach to the thousands,’ he said in English. ‘We don’t have a definite number right now.’

Referring to Friday’s devastating earthquake in Morocco, on the other side of North Africa, Ramadan said the situation in Libya was ‘as devastating as the situation in Morocco.’

Ossama Hamad, Prime Minister of the government in eastern Libya, said that many of the missing were believed to have been carried away after two upstream dams burst. He said the devastation in Derna is far beyond the capabilities of his country.

After more than a decade of chaos, Libya remains divided between two rival administrations: one in the east and one in the west, each backed by different militias and foreign governments. The conflict has left the oil rich North African country with crumbling and inadequate infrastructure.

Derna was declared a disaster zone and more bodies were still under the rubble in the city’s neighborhoods, or washed away to the sea, according to Abduljaleel, the health minister.

Residents posted videos online showing major devastation. Entire residential blocks were erased along Wadi Derna, a river that runs down from the mountains through the city center. Multi-story apartment buildings that once stood well back from the river were partially collapsed into mud.

Abduljaleel said the city was inaccessible and bodies were scattered all over, according to Libya’s state-run news agency. 

‘The situation was more significant and worse than we expected. An international intervention is needed,’ he was quoted as saying.

Emergency responders, including troops, government workers, volunteers and residents were digging through rubble to recover the dead. They also used inflatable boats to retrieve bodies from the water. Excavators and other equipment have yet to arrive in Derna.

But for some rescuers, their efforts to save others had fatal consequences in a sign of just how dangerous the work is. The Libyan Red Crescent said three of its workers had died while helping families in Derna.

Many residents described scenes of chaos when floods hit the centre. They heard loud explosions at night and realized that dams outside the city collapsed, sending a wall of water that ‘erased everything in its way,’ said Ahmed Abdalla, a Derna resident.

World Health Organization spokeswoman Margaret Harris meanwhile described the situation in Libya as ‘a calamity of epic proportions’.

Experts have described storm Daniel – which killed at least 27 people when it struck parts of Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey in recent days – as ‘extreme in terms of the amount of water falling in a space of 24 hours’.

In eastern Libya, the storm hit the coastal town of Jabal al-Akhdar especially hard, as well as Benghazi, where a curfew was declared and schools closed for several days.

Workers said they buried more than 200 bodies in one cemetery in Derna on Monday. Footage overnight showed dozens more bodies on the ground, covered by blankets or sheets, in a hospital yard in Derna.

The storm hit other areas in eastern Libya, including the town of Bayda, where about 50 people were reported dead. The Medical Center of Bayda, the main hospital, was flooded and patients had to be evacuated, according to footage shared by the center on Facebook.

Other towns that suffered, included Susa, Marj and Shahatt, according to the government. Hundreds of families were displaced and took shelter in schools and other government buildings in the city of Benghazi and elsewhere in eastern Libya.

Northeast Libya is one of the country’s most fertile and green regions. The Jabal al-Akhdar area – where Bayda, Marj and Shahatt are located – has one of the country’s highest average annual rainfalls, according to the World Bank.

Authorities in eastern and western Libya rushed to help Derna residents. The Health Ministry in Tripoli said a plane carrying 14 tons of medical equipment, drugs and body bags, along with health care workers headed Tuesday to Benghazi. Other agencies across the country said they would send humanitarian aid to Derna.

The prime minister also announced three days of mourning and ordered flags across the country to be lowered to half-staff.

Controlling eastern and western Libya, Cmdr. Khalifa Hifter deployed troops to help residents in Benghazi and other eastern towns. 

Ahmed al-Mosmari, a spokesperson for Hifter’s forces, said they lost contact with five troops who were helping besieged families in Bayda.

Foreign governments also sent messages of support to Libya.

Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates were among those that said they would send humanitarian assistance and teams to help with search and rescue efforts. The U.S. Embassy said Monday it was contacting the United Nations and Libyan authorities on how to deliver aid to the most affected areas.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi convened his military commanders on Tuesday to arrange urgent assistance to Libya. He said in televised comments that the military would deploy equipment and personnel in coordination with eastern Libyan forces to help affected communities.

Since a 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed long-time ruler Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has lacked a central government and the resulting lawlessness has meant dwindling investment in the country’s roads and public services and also minimal regulation of private building. 

The country is now split between rival governments in the east and west, each backed by an array of militias.

Derna itself, along with the city of Sirte, was controlled by extremist groups for years, at one point by those who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, until forces loyal to the east-based government expelled them in 2018.

Known for its white-painted houses and palm gardens, Derna is about 900 kilometers (560 miles) east of the capital of Tripoli. 

It is controlled by the forces of powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter, who is allied with the east Libya government. The rival government in west Libya, based in Tripoli, is allied with other armed groups.

Much of Derna was built by Italy when Libya was under Italian occupation in the first half of the 20th century. 

Jon Hamm cut a dapper figure in a grey suit as he watched the men’s singles Final at the US Open in New York City on Sunday.

The actor, 52, was spotted sitting with his new wife Anna Osceola while watching the match between Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens.

The couple – who tied the knot in Big Sur this past June after two years of dating – seemed in high spirits as they eagerly watched the Grand Slam. 

The Mad Men star opted for a crisp white open collar shirt with the smart grey outfit and donned a pair of dark sunglasses. 

Meanwhile, Anna cut a stylish figure in a green gingham shirt dress and accessorised by layering two gold necklaces and donned a pair of sunglasses. 

Many more stars showed up for the legendary sport competition, which saw Djokovic winning the 24th Grand Slam title again – for the fourth time.

The star-studded event saw the likes of Justin Timberlake, Nicole Kidman, Emily Ratajkowski, Matthew McConaughey, and a steamy appearance of Kylie Jenner and Timothee Chalamet.

Jon and Anne famously met on the Mad Men series finale back in 2015, the same year he ultimately ended his 18-year relationship with Jennifer Westfeldt.

During his past relationship, which spanned nearly two decades, the 52-year-old was adamant that he would never tie the knot as he stated that he didn’t ‘have a particularly defined example of marriage.’

‘My parents got divorced when I was two and never remarried. So it doesn’t mean anything to me,’ he said during a 2012 interview with Playboy. ‘I don’t mean to say that it shouldn’t mean things to other people. I’m not judging it one way or another.’

The star continued: ‘It’s just my experience. I don’t have that paragon of married life to look at and think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s it! That’s what I want!”

Additionally, he stated that he did not have ‘a driving force to have a baby.’

Still, he wasn’t completely opposed to becoming a father as he said he wasn’t ‘ruling it out.’

Just months after meeting Anna on set of Mad Men, Jon and Jennifer announced they ended their longtime relationship.

With great sadness, we have decided to separate, after 18 years of love and shared history,’ they told ET in a joint statement. We will continue to be supportive of each other in every way possible moving forward.’

At the time, a source told the outlet that Jon’s ‘party-heavy lifestyle’ had become too much for Jennifer.

‘Jon and Jennifer really fought hard to make their relationship work, Jennifer more so than Jon,’ the source revealed. ‘They were together for many years, but in the end, it was too much work. It’s no secret that Jon likes to go out and leads a very party-heavy lifestyle. And Jennifer was just tired of that.’

Additionally, it was claimed Jennifer wanted him ‘to grow up’ but ‘he never wanted to.’

Ultimately, she became sick of ‘being his mother.’

Eight years after their split, however, he managed to finally walk down the aisle with Osceola, who is 17 years his junior.

The couple reportedly began dating in 2020, five years after they were introduced on the set of his AMC show, which ran from 2007 to 2015.

Anna bagged a small role as the receptionist named Clementine at Esalen, a spiritual California retreat that Jon’s character (Don Draper), attended in the final episode of the hit series.

The couple have been spotted together dating as far back as 2017 but rumours of their romance really took off in 2020, when the pair were repeatedly spotted running errands together during the coronavirus lockdown.

The pair exchanged vows just before sunset at Anderson Canyon in Big Sur, California, which is where they were first introduced while filming the series finale.

Matthew Hudson-Smith smashes European record to reach 400m final at the World Championships just a month after leaving a Diamond League meeting in a wheelchair

• Matthew Hudson-Smith powered into Thursday’s 400m final in Budapest
• The one-lap specialist set a new European record with a time of 44.26sec
• He left last month’s Diamond League meeting in London in a wheelchair 

By Henry Clark For The Daily Mail

Updated: 18:20 EDT, 22 August 2023

Tragedy marred Spanish celebrations when it was revealed to goal scorer Olga Carmona that her father had passed away before the final.

Carmona’s father is understood to have died on Friday but news was kept from the 23-year-old so as not to affect her frame of mind going into the game against England.

The Spanish football federation tweeted after the game: ‘We deeply regret to announce the death of Olga Carmona’s father. The footballer learnt the sad news after the World Cup final. We love you, Olga, you are part of Spanish football history.’

Carmona had celebrated her first half goal with a message on her shirt for a friend whose mother had just died. 

It was reminiscent of men’s player Andres Iniesta’s gesture to his late friend Dani Jarque when he got Spain’s winning goal in the men’s World Cup final in 2010.

Carmona, a left back, was named player of the match and also scored a late winner in Spain’s semi-final win over Sweden.

She celebrated her team’s success on the pitch with her team-mates, dancing around the Sydney Stadium.

In an interview, she said: ‘We felt this team had something special’.

Spain celebrated their win in style out on the pitch with Queen Letizia even making her way to the centre of the team photograph and lifting the trophy. 

She was then presented with a Spain shirt with a number 12 on the back and had to politely decline as the entire squad chanted for her to put it on. 

Protocol was forgotten as Spain became only the second nation, after Germany, to have won both men’s and women’s World Cups.

‘We dedicate it to all our families and to the people back in Spain,’ said Jennifer Hermoso who missed a penalty, ‘we have played football the way we wanted to and we have won a world championship.’ 

Back in Spain they had been queuing two hours before kick-off outside of the 6,000 capacity WiZink Center in Madrid, one of around 30 fan sites set up around the country to show the final.

On 90 minutes there was a communal gulp as the fourth official showed that 13 minutes were to be added on, but once the final whistle had been blown the euphoria was released.

‘We got revenge in the most important of games,’ said Diario AS remembering how England had knocked Spain out of the Euros in the quarter-finals a year ago.

‘It’s nice that we are breaking down barriers and that we are being talked about,’ said midfielder Teresa Abelleira. The attention is unlikely to diminish any time soon.

Spain are due to arrive back home to Madrid on Monday night where they will go straight into a trophy parade in the Spanish capital.

However, their victory and subsequent celebrations have attracted controversy after the president of the Spanish FA Luis Rubiales kissed forward Jenni Hermoso on the podium as the players collected their medals.

Rubiales threw his arms around Hermoso and gave her a strong hug while whispering in her ear. He then put both his hands on the back of her head and kissed her on the lips.

Hermoso was asked about the embrace after the match by Spanish TV station La 1 and, appearing somewhat uncomfortable, told them: ‘Eh… yeah, I did not enjoy that.’ 

She said the same thing when asked on a livestream on her Instagram from Spain’s dressing rooms. 

Footage of the kiss has gone viral online since it was seen on air, with some supporters hugely critical of Rubiales’ behaviour.

One infuriated fan said: ‘The behaviour of Rubiales on that podium was absolutely grim. Highly highly inappropriate!’

Another added: ‘This is just awful, there’s absolutely nothing justifying Rubiales behaviour.’

A further angry individual highlighted their disdain at the attitude of a senior figure in Spanish football. They said: ‘The concerning fact here is the nonchalant manner Rubiales behaves towards Hermoso. The FA president does this on the biggest stage of the sport with royalty and officials near him, surrounded by cameras. Very disturbing, and frankly, concerning.’

One individual even insisted it was a worrying sign for the future of the sport as they added: ‘It’s sad to think that women’s football is not going to progress very far if men like Rubiales, Vilda, and Infantino remain in powerful positions.’

STEPH HOUGHTON: Spain were so clever and completely suffocated England in the final… I know the girls will be devastated but now it’s time to capitalise on their success in the WSL

• Lionesses impact at home is a ‘big win’ for England, despite coming second
• England narrowly lost out in a 1-0 defeat to Spain, with goal from Olga Carmona
• Another big moment in women’s football has grown the sport to new heights 

By Steph Houghton for the Daily Mail

Published: 17:31 EDT, 20 August 2023 | Updated: 18:18 EDT, 20 August 2023

By Ben Willcocks For Mailonline

Published: 02:45 EDT, 20 August 2023 | Updated: 06:20 EDT, 20 August 2023

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Prince William has apologised for not attending the Women’s World Cup final in person to cheer on the Lionesses in a video message with Princess Charlotte.

The Prince of Wales, who is also the president of the Football Association, has faced a major backlash over his decision not to fly to Australia for England’s first World Cup final since 1966, despite members of the Spanish royals planning to travel.

England will take on Spain in the final, which kicks of at 11am GMT on Sunday. 

In a video posted on the Prince and Princess of Wales’ social media account, Prince William wished the Lionesses luck alongside his daughter Princess Charlotte, who held a football. 

William said: ‘Lionesses, I want to send you a huge good luck for tomorrow. 

‘We’re sorry we can’t be there in person but we’re so proud of everything you have achieved and the millions you’ve inspired here and around the world. So go out there tomorrow and really enjoy yourselves.’ 

A beaming Charlotte, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, added: ‘Good luck Lionesses!’ 

The royals have been largely criticised in recent days for not planning to travel to the final, with fans of the England squad wondering if the same decision would have been taken if it was the men’s team in the final. 

Meanwhile the Royal Spanish Football Federation has confirmed that Queen Letizia and her 16-year-old daughter, Infanta Sofia, will be jetting to Australia for the match.

The pair will sit in the presidential box at the Accor Stadium, but won’t be joined by King Felipe, who is busy with other official duties.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is also not expected to attend tomorrow’s final against Spain which has fuelled further criticism – as the government frantically scrambled Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to Sydney to support Sarina Wiegman’s side.

Kensington Palace confirmed earlier this week that the Prince of Wales would not be making the trip Down Under. He will instead be roaring on the Lionesses – who are playing in their first ever World Cup final – from home.

The cost of the trip and carbon footprint were cited as reasons for the prince not to go by palace sources – but amid reports of a crunch royal summit on Monday between King Charles and William and Kate, it is unclear if this also played a role in the decision. 

But as critics rounded on the prince this week, Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, told MailOnline yesterday: ‘It’s utterly ridiculous that England wasn’t and still isn’t prepared to celebrate the women’s World Cup final. 

‘The President of the Football Association, Prince William isn’t bothering to attend, licensing laws haven’t been relaxed, there won’t be a screen at Trafalgar Square, and there’s been no word of any kind of large celebration should they win.

‘This last minute scramble to show support for the Lionesses by our leaders isn’t just embarrassing, it reveals how little they think of women’s sport.

‘You can guarantee that there’s no way the men’s football team would be treated with such disregard and disrespect.’

Royal expert Phil Dampier added: ‘If #PrinceWilliam as President of the FA isn’t going to the Women’s World Cup final we should be told why not. It’s a long way and Australia hasn’t had a visit by him or #TheKing since Charles came to the throne. That’s the problem. If the final was in Europe he’d be there!’ 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be absent due to ‘existing Government business commitments’, but will be ‘cheering the Lionesses on from Yorkshire’, a source said.

But Labour MP Kate Osborne told Times Radio: ‘We all know that if this was the men’s final, Sunak, and the FA president, Prince William, would be in attendance no matter how long the flight to Australia is.’

Gerry Sutcliffe, who served as sports minister under Gordon Brown between 2007 and 2010, told the Telegraph: ‘I think the Prince of Wales should be there.

‘I know it’s a long way and I’m sure he has family commitments but this is a unique moment, it’s the World Cup final.’

After the UK knocked out co-hosts Australia from the World Cup in the semi-finals this week, William led the way in congratulations as he sent a message to the squad: ‘What a phenomenal performance from the @Lionesses – on to the final! Commiserations to @TheMatildas, you’ve played brilliantly and been fantastic co-hosts of this World Cup.’

Shortly after the King and Queen sent their own congratulations: ‘My wife and I join all our family in sending the mighty Lionesses our warmest congratulations on reaching the final of the World Cup, and in sharing our very best wishes for Sunday’s match.

‘While your victory may have cost the magnificent Matildas their chance for the greatest prize in the game, both teams have been an inspiration on and off the pitch – and, for that, both nations are united in pride, admiration and respect.’

Fans’ disappointment was net yet over, however – as No.10 refused to say it would consider a national Bank Holiday if England won the championship.

Although Downing Street stressed the government would find the ‘right way’ to mark the team becoming World Champions, it is understood a Bank Holiday is not currently under consideration. 

This is a breaking news story. More to follow. 

England vs Spain – the three key battles that could decide where the World Cup final will be won or lost

By Kathryn Batte For The Daily Mail

Published: 17:31 EDT, 18 August 2023 | Updated: 18:13 EDT, 18 August 2023