3 lions and a real lion: Fans party with sheikh’s son

TWO England fans on the hunt for beer at the World Cup claim they ended up partying in a palace with a ‘sheikh’s son’ and his pet lion.

Everton fan Alex Sullivan and a friend, who identified himself only as John, posted their night out in Qatar with two local men on social media.

Mr Sullivan told TalkSport: ‘We were on a hunt for some beers and they said “We’ll sort beers”, so we jumped into the back of his Toyota Land Cruiser, ended up in a big palace. We were in the back and he showed us monkeys, his exotic birds, it was nuts.’ John added: ‘Last night we met one of the sheikh’s sons and he took us back to the palace and he showed us he had lions and everything. Look around you, it doesn’t get any better than this.’

Twitter users were quick to doubt this tall tale – but Mr Sullivan backed up his claims in the form of videos from his Snapchat account. In them he can be seen recounting the night as it happens, including when he turned up at the ‘palace’ and the moment he met a lion cub, pictured right. In one piece of footage, he can be seen walking up a driveway to what appears to be a large Qatari home.

In other video clips Mr Sullivan can be seen sitting outside under floodlights next to what appear to be a set of football nets along with a group of men dressed in traditional Qatari thobes – long white robes – and headdresses.

More videos showed him walking around what appears to be a palatial home, hanging out with locals and speeding down a highway in a car.