FIFA fools took World Cup to Qatar and now expect it not to be Qatari!

AT ThE Westin hotel on Awaji island, near Kobe, Japan, Sven Goran Eriksson surveyed the players’ recreation room.

There were 23 individual, stateof-the-art games consoles, one for each member of the squad, a pool table, an air-hockey table, three games of table football, plus table tennis. Next door was a cinema and space for the 23 additional laptops that each player had received, along with a Walkman, a CD player and a mobile phone.

This, it was hoped, would keep restless minds active on their way to the inevitable quarter-final exit. Eriksson turned to the Football Association official by his side. ‘Why can’t they just read a book?’ he wondered.

We could of course argue, knowing what we know now, that the FA man might have asked Sven the same question — but that’s another story.

The point is this. There will be officials in Qatar this morning who will be thinking the same about us. Not the England players specifically, but those who follow them. Why are we always so thirsty? Why is it almost unthinkable that anyone might want to watch a football match sober?

All this controversy about alcohol availability, alcohol prices, where to get it, when to get it, how long does the bar stay open? We don’t sound very smart. It seems we are only here for the beer.

We discuss the Gulf regions in terms of liberty and freedom, and understandably so, but with that comes a presumption that they must want what we have. And it isn’t true. The drinking culture that we regard as part of the matchday experience other countries find bemusing, even objectionable.

They have a point. Nobody who was at Wembley for England’s European Championship final would consider what transpired that day desirable. It was horrible, violent, threatening, boorish and in many ways utterly predictable.

The only shock, really, is that UEFA appear prepared to risk more of the same in 2028. Yet if Qatar had used footage of that day to support an argument for tightening the laws on alcohol consumption rather than loosening them during the tournament, who could really blame them?

Instead, they have taken the route of broken promises. Beer was going to be cheap but it’s not, it’s expensive — around £11.60 for a pint of Budweiser (suggested marketing tagline: Not Quite The Worst Beer In The World, Because That’s Fosters.)

And it was going to be plentiful — except it isn’t because licensed hours will be strictly controlled, sales outlets limited and around the stadium sites largely hidden.

The hosts do not like beer drinkers so they are not making it easy for them. And those hosts who were ready to compromise appear to have been crushed further down the line by the Supreme Committee. In the Gulf there is always a Supreme Committee. It is why it is often difficult to get event business done.

Budweiser will have been given encouragement by organisers whose priority is delivering a successful tournament, but those

agreements will have to be written off by Supreme Committee members with an entirely different concept of success.

Budweiser at one stage had a tanker moored outside Doha awaiting permission to deliver almost a third of its supply. They were being welcomed in one breath, told to wait in the next. Budweiser have jumped through hoops just to get to where they are in Qatar now.

Hence the mealy- mouthed statement released earlier this week. ‘Budweiser is proud to be served in compliance with the local rules and regulations by FIFA’s appointed concessionaire.’ And as we all know, ain’t no party like a FIFA-appointed concessionaire party.

The bottom line problem is that FIFA took a World Cup to Qatar and then expected Qatar not to let it be Qatari.

To return to England’s Eriksson years, he was unveiled as manager on November 2, 2000 at Sopwell House, having flown in that morning from Rome. Standing before the media, England’s first foreign manager wore a Remembrance Day poppy. one imagines they are not in great supply in the city Mussolini called home. So the FA wanted to employ a foreign manager while affecting the illusion he was one of us.

And that is what FIFA wanted from Qatar, too. They wanted the nation’s wealth, its growing influence, and certainly its lucrative bribes, they just did not want Qatar to host a Qatari tournament.

So for years they maintained the pretence of a western welcome, and western compromises and attitudes when, really, why should the hosts have to change their core beliefs? FIFA knew deep down where their World Cup was going and what they would be getting but Qatar went along with this airbrushed version of itself because, as the sign at the media centre in Doha says: ‘Now is all.’

THEN, on Wednesday, when a journalist tried to take a photograph of that sign, he was asked to press delete by a security guard because this is now a Qatari World Cup and it is too late to do anything about that.

Recently, Qatar has started to flex its muscles after so much faux-compromise, which is why a beer is approaching £12, if you send out a search party and are prepared to queue.

And there is much that is Qatar’s fault, but not this. Because they don’t really want to sell you a beer, and they never wanted to sell you a beer, but it was FIFA’s price for taking their money. They thought the hosts should hold a p***- up, just without the brewery.

You will notice, however, that whatever the price of a pint, it never seems to be FIFA’s round.