Brazil fought hard when FIFA insisted it overturn its ban on alcohol in stadiums, but the World Cup hosts lost, and with the tournament now under way it is official: Beer is back.
After 11 years of stadium sobriety, FIFA and its sponsor Budweiser celebrated the suspension of Brazil’s law against alcohol sales at matches — a bid to stop crowd violence — by pouring thousands of cold ones for fans at Thursday’s opening game in Sao Paulo.
Fans could also buy Bud Zero and local brands Brahma and Brahma Zero, all owned by AB InBev, the world’s biggest brewer.
Warning: Excessive consumption of alcohol can damage your health
Photo: AFP
Those will be the only alcoholic beverages on sale at matches, thanks to Budweiser’s contract to sponsor the World Cup until 2022, a deal estimated to be worth several million US dollars a year.
Fans looking for caipirinhas or any other beer will have to find a street vendor — who, in another concession to FIFA, are kept well away from the stadium.
Last month, the German Centre for Addiction Issues, a health lobby group, condemned the lifting of the ban for the World Cup and last year’s Confederations Cup warm-up tournament.
“It is a health, political and security scandal,” said Raphael Gassmann, the organization’s director, warning alcohol sales were linked to violence. “Economic interests must not prevail over the health and security of spectators.”
Two days before the opening match, the British Medical Journal published a report criticizing FIFA’s conduct in Brazil and soccer’s links with the booze business.
“Whichever country hoists aloft the trophy on 13 July the real winner will be the alcohol industry,” it said. FIFA “has a long record of championing the financial interests of its commercial partners, including Budweiser, the tournament’s official beer partner, by imposing extreme conditions on governments around the world.”
These include tax waivers on any profits made by commercial partners during the World Cup and “bullying” the Brazilian government into suspending its stadium alcohol ban, it said.
Though it lost the alcohol battle, Brazil did manage to win some small victories in its wrangling with FIFA.
Petitions in host cities Salvador and Recife forced FIFA to cave in and allow stadium sales of two favorite local foods — acaraje, an iconic black-eyed pea fritter, and tapioca, a crepe made with cassava flour.
It is up to fans whether or not to wash them down with a cold Bud.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier