Prince William kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Sunday, and while the historic visit started on the right foot, the Duke of Cambridge had one very specific request for his entourage — they were banned from talking about the England vs Panama 2018 World Cup result in his presence.
After a day of royal engagements and lengths to avoid the score, the avid football fan was able to sit down and watch the game, which resulted in an 6-1 win to England, after he revealed he’d asked the Crown Prince of Jordan to record it for him.
Wills enjoyed some downtime with Hussein, the Crown Prince of Jordan, watching England beat Panama in the 2018 World Cup.
In photographs shared by Kensington Palace to their official Instagram account, Wills is pictured relaxing on a sofa alongside Al Hussein bin Abdullah II, enjoying a replay of the game.
“Prince William couldn’t watch the @England match live and avoided finding out the score all afternoon. He sat down with Crown Prince @alhusseinjo to watch a rerun after dinner at the Beit Al Urdun Palace. Well done the #ThreeLions!”
The Princes in the man cave!
‘Could you please record the England vs Panama match for me?’ Football fan William didn’t want to miss out on seeing his team play in the World Cup.
The 36-year-old prince arrived in Jordan on Sunday to begin an official five-day visit to the Middle East. Although he was travelling alone, his family weren’t far from his mind.
“My wife Catherine is very sorry she cannot be here with me so soon after the birth of our son Louis, but her family remembers very fondly the almost three years she spent here as a child when her father worked for British Airways in Amman,” William told guests at a belated birthday party in honor of Queen Elizabeth II.
The Duchess of Cambridge was two years old when he family relocated to Amman.
William met the chief executive of Save The Children in Jordan, who told him she knew the house where Kate’s family lived, which is now the home of the woman’s children’s pediatrician.
The Prince was delighted by the revelation saying, “No way! She will be thrilled. She loved it here, she really did. She is very upset that I am coming here without her.”
Wills and Hussein appeared to get along famously, while on a tour of a technology lab in Amman.
During his first day of the tour, William visited the TechWorks Fabrication Lab, a technology lab set up by Hussein, Crown Prince of Jordan’s foundation and co-funded by the European Union, where he was gifted football-themed gifts: A wooden shield and a model of a gas tank of a Ducati motorbike, both decorated with the crest of the Prince’s Premiere League team, Aston Villa.
“Very good. You have done your research,” he said.
William was impressed by the technologies he was shown during the lab tour and was even inspired to have his children learn about them.
When students demonstrated how a robotic arm could draw impressive patterns the Prince told them, “This will be good for my children to start learning a bit of coding. It has to be helpful.”
