Beer-drinking Brits expecting cheap pints at this month's World Cup are in for a shock, after it was revealed they could be charged around £80 per pint.
Qatar – which is a teetotal country for religious reasons – is hosting the show-piece football tournament starting next week.
And British people descending upon it will be hoping to get bladdered, as has become the classic tradition when following England's national team abroad (or Wales).
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And while hotels and certain designated areas are being allowed to sell alcohol, an investigation by the i newspaper has shown that it will not come cheap – thanks to new cover charged introduced by some popular sports bars.
In one bar, the Champions Sports Bar at the Marriott Hotel in Doha, a group stage game will come with a £48 charge to get in, followed by a Budweiser, Corona or house wine charged at £16- and this is per game, as some days have three games per day.
Should you still be there for the for the knockout stages, a drink will cost you £180 to get in, while the semi finals will be around £240.
That eye-watering final charge is also for the final – which gives you a three-drink voucher, meaning that a bottle of Corona beer will come at a shocking cost of around £80 per pint.
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Ashley Brown, head of supporter Engagement and governance at the Football Supporters’ Association, told I: “There isn’t a variety of museums, theatres, restaurants, bars, cafes, it is fairly limited what you can do in Doha.
“You kind of feel, particularly in the early rounds when all those teams, all those fans are there, Qatar is going to be sort of bulging at the seams, and people may have trouble finding places to get in and watch the game and have a beer, that’s if they can afford to have a beer of course.
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“You’re probably not going to go in there for like six or seven hours and drink six or seven pints at that price, certainly not every day, which some people might normally do in a tournament.
“So I think the combination of capacity, costs, it’s going to be a bit of a strange one.”
The country will also have free fan parts, with “dry” sections, as well as an area where only Budweiser can be bought.
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