Sport / Sports
Mini guide for fans What awaits us in Qatar? Rooms are on offer for 100 euros, but also for 10,000; you can’t enter the country without a ticket for one of the matches, and only non-alcoholic drinks will be permitted at the stadiums themselves
Alcohol will only be served in special zones around the stadium, ex- clusively to adults with match tickets, in the period between 6:30pm and 1:00am. It is expected that a bottle of beer will cost 12-13 euros. How- ever, anyone caught drunk in a pub- lic place could face up to six months in prison. Only non-alcoholic drinks will be permitted at the stadiums themselves. One piece of good news for fans is that the stadiums are located just a few dozen kilometres apart and are all linked via bus or train lines, which you can ride for free by show- ing your match tickets. Another ad- vantage of the short distances is that you can watch two matches in one day. All stadiums were purpose built for the World Cup and represent mi- ni masterpieces of architecture. For example, Serbia will play Switzerland at a stadium called “974”. Why? Be- cause it is made from precisely 974 shipping containers, as an homage to the site’s industrial history and in reference to the international tele- phone prefix for Qatar (+974). The containers, which contain all stadi- um amenities, will be subsequent- ly dismantled and given as aid to underdeveloped countries around the world. FIFA announced in mid-Septem- ber that approximately 2.5 million tickets for World Cup matches have been sold. The number is falling by the day, so most matches might have sold out by the time you read this issue of Elevate. However, that doesn’t mean you should abandon your planned trip to Qatar without a fight. Tickets are being sold online and it’s possible that many buyers will not turn up, or that they won’t collect their tickets, so they will be placed back on sale, perhaps at re- duced prices, because FIFA and the organisers of the World Cup want the stadiums to be packed to the rafters for every match. Whatever the case, see you in Qatar... or in front of the TV.
Just a little longer... until football fever be- gins. It was on the day of jesting that is April Fool’s Day, 1 st April, that we found out the groups for the up- coming FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and Serbia’s rivals are anything but a joke. The opening match for coach Dragan Stojković’s “eagles” will be on 24 th November against Brazil, a team that’s long been synonymous with football. Four days later, we will be awaited by Senegal, one of Africa’s strongest national teams, while we complete the group stage on 2 nd De- cember against Switzerland, a team that owes us a big one from the tour- nament in Russia four years ago. That’s what we know, but what about the fans? Despite prices in Qa- tar being significantly higher than Serbia, organisers insist that fans
won’t have a problem finding accom- modation, depending on their spend- ing power. Rooms are on offer for 100 euros, but also for 10,000 in the most luxurious hotels that are rem- iniscent of One Thousand and One Nights. Qatar is expecting around 1.5 million fans from all over the world – from Costa Rica to Japan, from Canada to Australia – to pa- rade through the country in a lit- tle less than a month. Many people, many temperaments and different habits and desires. And the Qataris have established a few rules to en- sure there won’t be any problems. Firstly, you can’t enter the country without a ticket for one of the World Cup matches. You can choose to fly there, but upon landing in Doha you will be turned around and sent back home on the same plane.
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