PLAY THE GAME AND YOU’LL F I ND ALCOHOL,

Once you pass through the checkpoint and the walls that ring the compound topped by circular razor wire, the Qatar Distribution Co. is really like any other liquor store. Well, except for the appointment-only shopping and the numerous ID checks, and the pork section which sells a selection of pork belly, gourmet smoked back bacon, ribs and more. The pork section says specifically: For Non-Muslims. This, at the moment, is the only liquor store in Qatar.

Alcohol is tightly regulated in this conservative, Muslim country, and it has become a central dynamic in this World Cup. Five days before the tournament began, Qatar’s Supreme Committee moved the beer tents that were supposed to serve Budweiser before and after matches at stadiums. Two days before the first match, beer at stadiums was eliminated altogether. It was reported both moves came from Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the brother of the emir; luxury boxes would still serve alcohol.

“Honestly, if this is the biggest issue we have for the World Cup, I will sign immediately, go to the beach and relax until the 18th of December,” said FIFA president Gianni Infantino in his rambling tournament-opening address to the media. “I think personally if for three hours a day you cannot drink a beer, you will survive.”

Alcohol has real societal and health harms, but it greases a lot of gears, so this World Cup has become a hunt for booze.

Hotels and some restaurants serve alcohol, at high prices. The Irish bar at the Best Western will sell you Carlsberg for the equivalent of $12, which isn’t far off a downtown Toronto beer, and the J.W. Marriott pool bar charges $17 for a draft, which is a common price. During matches the prices go up, and a gratuitous cover charge is often applied. World Cup fan zones sell Budweiser, too, but not until 7 p.m., in time for the third match of the day. A Seattle aerospace salesperson named Ed Ball created a Google Map of alcohol locations, and it’s been a North Star for many visitors.

There have traditionally only been a few avenues for residents outside of this: the Doha Golf Club, for instance (whose liquor licence was grandfathered in), or the invitation-only rugby club, or flying to Dubai. There are whispers of places which serve illegally, of course. They’re not on the map.

Which leaves the one liquor store in Qatar. (There was a second location, in the hotel-happy West Bay neighbourhood, but it has been shuttered because of World Cup road closures.) To buy your own booze in Qatar requires a permit, obtained with Qatari ID and a letter from your boss, and alcohol purchase limits are set in relation to your salary.

It’s a compromise, really: Qataris outsource every single job they don’t want to do to a migrant workforce drawn from India, South Asia, Africa and elsewhere, and often treat those people like second-class citizens. But it lets them buy booze, if they are willing to go through the procedure and follow the rules. Monthly purchase limits were doubled for permit holders during the World Cup. Alcohol does get shared with non-licence holders, but it’s technically illegal. If you are seen to be sharing it, they take it back.

So, it became a bit of a magical thing, right? A forbidden thing, with everyone visiting the country finding out how far they were willing to go for alcohol. And a week ago, FIFA quietly sent out an email to certain journalists with a link to apply for a temporary liquor-buying licence. The email spread through the tournament and was easy to fill out. Several Canadian journalists applied and were granted licences.

Once approved, we followed the rules. We made an appointment and did some online pre-shopping, which requires your permit number, ID number, name and phone number, and a temporary code that gets emailed to you.

And after all that it’s capitalism, plus the razor wire.

The Qatar Distribution Co. is south of central Doha in a neighbourhood which is all concrete and limestone walls and schools: the Ideal Indian School, Sudanese

School, Bangladeshi MHM School, Qatar Technical Secondary School For Boys, Al Falah Primary School For Girls. Maybe that explains the razor wire. Watch it, kids.

But once inside, it’s just a store. Your ID will get checked three separate times, but the employees are helpful. They have country-specific World Cup sales, and have decorated the razor-wire walk to the front door with World Cup flags. There is a raffle for store credit.

And they have a lot of booze. The most expensive item is a 4.5-litre bottle of Absolut Elyx vodka for 2,438 riyals, or just under $900; the three next-most expensive items are out of stock. The wine selection is expansive. The best buy for beer is India’s Tiger, which is only slightly more expensive here than it would be at home: $2.80 per 330ml bottle. For someone from Toronto, the prices aren’t shocking at all.

But like every single thing about Qatar, it’s a reflection of the inequality in this country, too. The hotels and restaurants are too expensive for the vast majority of Qatar’s two million-plus foreign workers. It is said to be the most expensive place on earth to get a beer at an average of $11.26 (U.S.). The more moneyed foreign workers — like, say, Canadian journalists — can afford it, and every order at the distribution company is a New Year’s Eve special: cases of beer, cases of wine, cases of liquor, loaded on carts.

These are elite Western prices in a country where the vast majority of visiting workers are only here because they can make more money here than in their native countries, and then send it home.

Anyway, the Canadians bought some beer and some wine for the little villa some of us share. And when you tell people you can buy beer here, you become a teenager with a fake ID again. Everyone asks: How did you do that? What was it like? And most important: Can you get me some? And of course you say: That is illegal. We would never do that, not even if you brought a suitcase to smuggle it home with.

But a funny thing happens, too. Once you get over your adolescent excitement over buying beer, it makes you question yourself. In society, we’re just starting to have a more honest conversation over alcohol. It’s really bad for you, and we largely ignore that. You start to ask: Why am I so attached to this? Why am I willing to pay that $17, or to jump through all the hoops, or to get past the razor wire and load up a cart?

It’s a little uncomfortable, to be honest. A lot of people drank too much when at home during the pandemic. A lot of dads out there are starting to talk about marijuana gummies, out of earshot of the kids. You might be able to argue that Qatar’s relationship with alcohol is healthier, in the strictest sense, than ours.

And then it passes, almost reflexively, because it’s hot and beer’s easy and damn there’s a lot going on at this crazy World Cup, this mixture of footballing drama and Iran’s protests and workers’ rights and the still-continuing anti-LGBTQ crackdown on anything with a rainbow on it, despite FIFA’s recent memo to let them through. This tournament is starting to feel like an extraordinary ordinary soccer tournament even in this miragelike, repressive-elitist fever dream, where fans are spending huge money to live in storage containers or drink in fancy hotels or attend games in gleaming, air-conditioned, open-air stadiums that were built by slaves. It’s a lot.

And sometimes at the end of another day navigating the strange madness of it all, you want to crack a beer. Maybe you shouldn’t, but you do.

To buy your own booze in Qatar requires a permit, obtained with Qatari ID and a letter from your boss, and alcohol purchase limits are set in relation to your salary