Football fans heading to Qatar for the World Cup are facing paying up to £80 a pint as part of outrageous ‘booze deals’ on offer in the typically Muslim kingdom.
Champion’s Bar at the Marriott Hotel in Doha, which bills itself as the city’s ‘best sports bar’, is selling tickets to the final for £240, including food and three drinks, meaning each beer or glass of wine can fetch up to £80. cost cost
Meanwhile, other hotels in Qatar – one of the few places where you can drink due to strict Sharia law – are halting their usual promotions or raising prices, with patrons facing prices of £11 a pint or more.
Even those who want to watch matches in the World Cup fan zones, where drinking is only allowed between certain times, have to pay more than £7 for a beer.
Football fans are paying up to £80 a pint as part of outrageous ‘drink deals’ offered by hotels in Qatar – one of the few places where it is possible to buy a drink (file photo)
Qatar will become the first Muslim country to host a World Cup when the games begin in two weeks’ time, but the tournament has been mired in controversy from the start.
Allegations of corruption have been made against FIFA over the decision to award the tournament to Qatar, and allegations of mistreatment of migrant workers have dogged the accusations.
At least 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since the World Cup was awarded a decade ago, and experts say many are likely linked to construction sites and other infrastructure projects to support the event.
Doha has also been accused of completing many of the effective slave labor projects.
Linked to this, the repressive kingdom’s opposition to human rights – including comments made this week by a Qatari official that gay men have a mental illness – has also sparked controversy.
Even Sepp Blatter, former Fifa boss who resigned shortly after Qatar’s world title amid a corruption scandal, admitted picking her was a “mistake”.
Millions of fans will travel to tiny Qatar for the tournament – which has a normal population of just 300,000 – where England will play their first game against Iran on November 21.
Hotels in Doha are canceling their regular drinks promotions and raising prices ahead of the World Cup, which starts on November 20
“It’s too small a country,” he told a newspaper in his native Switzerland this week.
After all, the Qatar peninsula is about 113 miles long – roughly the distance from London to Bristol – and not counting a regular population of just 300,000 expatriates and migrant workers.
This has led to fears that the peninsula’s facilities will simply be overwhelmed by the number of incoming sports fans, likely to exceed 1 million.
It is these fears that have prompted some Qatari hotels – The Four Seasons, Kempinski and W Hotel – to raise prices on their regular drink specials.
Four Seasons is ending its two-hour £42 all-you-can-drink promotion and raising the cost of its bottomless brunches from £130 to £306, The Sun says.
The Kempinski ended happy hour when it normally charged £8.40 for a pint, with fans expected to cough up £11.
Controversy erupts over decision to award World Cup to Qatar amid corruption and human rights abuses
And the W Hotel is serving the last of its £108 Bottomless Brunches on the Friday before the first game of next weekend’s tournament.
A Four Seasons employee said, “We couldn’t handle thousands of fans trying to take advantage of our happy hour, so we had to stop them.”
The 2022 World Cup kicks off on November 20 when hosts Qatar take on Ecuador, with England playing their first match against Iran on Monday.
If England top their group as expected, the next match will be on December 4 in the round of 16.
Quarter-finals will be played on 9 and 10 December, semi-finals on 13 and 14 December and final on 18 December.
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