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Football, Beer and ASEAN’s Bid to Host the World Cup

English football supporters at the World Cup in Germany in June 2006. FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke insisted Thursday that Brazil must allow beer to be sold at World Cup 2014 matches even though the sale of alcohol is currently banned in its stadiums. (EPA Photo)

Football and beer have been partners as long as anyone can remember. From solitary billboards in 19th century stadiums to multimillion pound sponsorships today, drinking beer is as much a part of the English match day experience as casting doubts over the referee’s parentage and listening to the final scores around the country on someone’s portable transistor radio.

News that FIFA has told Brazil that selling beer in its stadiums during the World Cup is a must came as a bit of a surprise, I must admit. I assumed, given Brazil’s love of carnivals and football, beer would be widely available. OK, it will be now, but the fact that beer has to be sold as part of hosting the World Cup was a new one for me.

No doubt inspired by multi-million dollar sponsorship deals from a brewery paying for the right to be the “Official World Cup Beer,” one can’t help but wonder how countries in this region would feel about flogging ale to the drunken bare-chested hordes who will inevitably head this way should the impossible happen and an ASEAN bid to host the 2030 World Cup is accepted.

Indonesia of course has previously applied to host the competition but was forced to drop its bid before it could translate its widely optimistic bid document into English with the government saying it wouldn’t back the bid, a move leading to the current mess in the game.

Let’s just suppose ASEAN does win the bid. Would beer suddenly become available in stadiums? For now, in Indonesia, about the only drinks fans can purchase are flimsy plastic bottles of water or the odd sports drink. Beer has yet to gain acceptance with the wider populace who seem happy enough to smoke themselves to an early grave but not get incandescently drunk on the local nectar. Though to be fair, when Indonesia hosted Australia during the Asian Cup qualifiers in 2010 a few entrepreneurial vendors did smuggle a few tinnies into the stadium for the Australian support!

There was talk a couple of years back of a brewery’s sponsoring one of the big Indonesian teams, but the offer was rejected by the club worried about the impact beer would have on the local youth brought up on a daily TV diet of corruption, demonstrations and intolerance. Certainly it would be difficult to see any winning World Cup bid featuring Banda Aceh where they apply a form of sharia law on the inhabitants.

Malaysia has lost out recently because of strict laws banning beer advertising. Liverpool, which is massive there, came to Southeast Asia a few years back but was forced to cross Kuala Lumpur off its list because the Malaysians could not accept the prominent role the club’s then sponsor, a major brewery, insisted upon.

Singapore boasts a brewery as a sponsor, but the product is not available inside stadiums. Gambling is considered okay but drinking beer is a no-no.

The only country in the immediate region which is comfortable with accepting the big bucks the beer companies offer is Thailand, where most of the clubs have some sort of sponsorship deal for beer and the products are widely available inside and outside stadiums, and eagerly consumed by the public.
Qatar will be an interesting test case for FIFA. Will the Arab state allow beer sales in its stadiums?

For the time being, the deep pockets of a beer company’s advertising budget remains closed to the local football market and until the authorities can find a way to accept beer money, any World Cup dream will remain just a dream.

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