World Cup beer going to waste after Qatari royals’ booze ban

Thousands of Budweiser beer cans have been left piled up at a warehouse after the 11th hour decision to ban the sale of alcohol in stadiums.

The beverage giant had been announced as one of the sponsors for the tournament, and had been granted a monopoly to sell beer at the grounds, but it is now only able to sell its alcohol-free version of its beer there.

Furious football fans started demanding refunds from World Cup bosses when the decision was made on Friday, understood to be following pressure from the Qatari royal family.

It has left Budweiser facing the prospect of large amounts of stock now going to waste, The Sun reports.

However, it has now offered the cans of beer to the nation that comes out victorious following the tournament.

It said: ‘New Day, New Tweet. Winning Country gets the Buds. Who will get them?’

It comes after Budweiser poked fun at the announcement that alcohol would be banned in stadiums on Friday, tweeting ‘well, this is awkward…’ before it was deleted.

Tankers are said to have made the 8,000-mile voyage to Qatar stocked with beer from breweries in London, Lancashire and Wales.

Qatar is a typically teetotal nation where tourists can only buy or consume alcohol inside licenced hotels or restaurants.

Exemptions for the World Cup previously meant fans were able to buy beers in special ‘fan zones’ or on stadium concourses.

But Qatar seems to have reneged on part of that deal, meaning beer can now only be sold inside the ‘fan zones’.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the brewing giant which owns Bud and dozens of other beer brands, said it is still looking forward to ‘celebrating football with our consumers’ but some sales cannot go ahead due to ‘circumstances beyond our control’.

In the statement on Friday, InBev made no mention of possible legal action over the $75million deal it holds with Fifa, which gives it exclusive rights to sell beer at World Cup games.

Doha could also be facing legal action, having signed contracts agreeing to ‘respect Fifa’s sponsors’.