Qatar to send drunk fans to sobering up areas during World Cup

Qatar's World Cup chief Nasser Al Khater has said there will be special zones at the tournament for drunk football supporters to sober up.

The sale of alcohol in Qatar will move from hotel bars to fan zones and outside stadiums during the World Cup, which runs from Nov. 20 to Dec. 18. As a Muslim country, Qatar is not used to dealing with public drunkenness, potentially on a mass scale, but has decided to control the issue by ensuring there is an alternative to arrests or jail time.

«There are plans in place for people to sober up if they've been drinking excessively,» Al Khater, who is chief executive of the supreme committee, told Sky News. «It's a place to make sure that they keep themselves safe, they're not harmful to anybody else.»

It has been reported that fans who end up in a so-called «sober tent» will remain there until they are sufficiently clear-headed to be released with a warning. Being drunk in Qatar is not accepted by locals or authorities.

On the topic of LGBTQ+ laws within Qatar, Al Khater said that nobody would be discriminated against in this respect and insisted gay fans can hold hands.

«All we ask is for people to be respectful of the culture,» Al Khater said. «At the end of the day, as long as you don't do anything that harms other people, if you're not destroying public property, as long as you're behaving in a way that's not harmful, then everybody's welcome and you have nothing to worry about.»