The tiny, oppressive Muslim nation of Qatar won the right to host the World Cup soccer tournament in 2010 when FIFA — the international governing body for the sport — decided it would be kind of cool to give the billion-dollar games to a country with few soccer stadiums, virtually no hotels, few bars, few restaurants, and no tourist infrastructure to speak of.
Twelve years later, something of a miracle has been wrought — but at a sickening cost in human lives. No one knows how many workers died on construction projects directly related to the World Cup. Qatar gets angry when asked, just as they get angry when questioned about how they treat women and LGBTQ people. The number is certainly in the hundreds, but we’ll probably never get a specific body count.
Banner by Bayern fans in Berlin against Qatar World Cup: '15,000 dead for 5760 minutes of football. Shame on you' pic.twitter.com/gG3Qq3yGjX
— Bayern & Germany (@iMiaSanMia) November 5, 2022
The tournament is already a PR disaster for FIFA, and now they have to contend with a million angry fans descending on Qatar who have just found out two days before the event begins that there will be no beer sold in the eight stadiums built for the tournament.
When Qatar launched its bid to host the World Cup, the country agreed to FIFA’s requirements of selling alcohol in stadiums — but the details were only released in September, just 11 weeks before the first kickoff, suggesting how fraught the negotiations may have been. Friday’s statement from FIFA said non-alcoholic beer will still be sold at the eight stadiums, while champagne, wine, whiskey and other alcohol will be served in the luxury hospitality areas of the arenas.
But the vast majority of ticket holders don’t have access to those areas; they will be able to drink alcoholic beer in the evenings in what is known as the FIFA Fan Festival, a designated party area that also offers live music and activities. Outside of the tournament-run areas, Qatar puts strict limits on the purchase and consumption of alcohol, though its sale has been permitted in hotel bars for years.
FIFA has a slight problem. The organization is charging Budweiser $75 million for the rights to sell beer in the stadiums, display their logo on tents where beer was supposed to have been served outside of the stadiums, and become the “official beer” of the World Cup.
What marketing genius actually believed the word of a fabulously wealthy, deeply traditional Muslim emir when the royal family guaranteed to FIFA that they would sell beer to fans in stadiums?
The decision to ban beer comes a week after an earlier edict that dozens of red beer tents covered in the branding a Budweiser, a longstanding World Cup sponsor, would have be moved to more discreet locations at the World Cup’s eight stadiums, away from where most of the crowds attending the games would pass.
Staff members, according to three people with direct knowledge of that earlier change, were told the move followed security advice. But the belief that the change had originated with Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani — the brother of Qatar’s ruling emir and the royal most active in the day-to-day planning of the tournament — suggested it was non-negotiable.
Now beer will not merely be hidden out of view: It will not be available to fans at all.
The World Cup is usually held in mid-summer but had to be moved to November because mid-summer temperatures in Qatar reach about 115 degrees. As it is, temps will average in the high 90s.
Yeah, but it’s a dry heat.
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