Sports, alcohol and the Islamic world

Throughout history, the Islamic world has had an on-and-off relationship to alcohol. On theological grounds, Islam banned alcohol in the early days of its emergence. But Muslim rulers in later centuries, including the Ottomans, gradually shifted to a more relaxed approach towards alcohol as they gained more non-Muslim territories, with diverse cultural orientations.

For example, in the seventeenth century, they introduced muskirat resmi, an alcohol tax for non-Muslims, which later came to be known as zecriye resmi in the eighteenth century.

Then Kemal Ataturk in the early twentieth century, in his bid to secularise Turkey, legalised alcohol. In the following years, a rich Turkish drinking culture would flourish as the country produces a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, including beer, wine and raki.

But nearly a century later, Erdogan, a Turkish leader nostalgic of the country's Ottoman past, would again restrict alcohol on occasions like Ramadan, or at night after 10 PM, which critics have described as part of his increasing Islamisation of Turkish society.

Like Turkey, other Islamic countries have had somewhat similar on-and-off relationships with alcohol, depending on the rulers.

For example, Pakistan's founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah was said to be fond of drinking. But later in 1977, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was originally supposed to inaugurate a large casino in Karachi, instead temporarily banned alcohol in Pakistan to save his political career and alliances. Later, in 1979, military ruler Zia-ul-Haq banned alcohol and announced strong punishment, citing Islamic jurisprudence.   

India, a Hindu-majority country on the other hand, also bans alcohol in certain states, including Bihar, Gujarat, Nagaland, and Mizoram, as well as the union territory of Lakshadweep.

India's founding father Mahatma Gandhi was an anti-alcohol campaigner who believed that liquor was worse than any other evil. Certain Indian states have different rationales for banning intoxicants. Bihar for example finds that the ban contributes to tackling alcoholism and domestic violence in the state.

And the list of Muslim countries' different variants of alcohol bans is seemingly endless - from Morocco, Tunisia to Qatar or Brunei. There are bans that are only imposed on the Muslim population of a country, there are bans implemented only on Fridays or Ramadan. There are places where alcohol is illegal except to tourists at certain hotels; places where it is legal only in licensed hotels, places where  foreigners are allowed to drink only in designated areas.

So when Qatar revealed they are banning alcohol in the football stadiums, the uproar, shock and disbelief felt in the Western Hemisphere didn't quite resonate in this part of the world given the history and people's on-and-off connection with alcohol.

It is not like Qatar – the tiny super rich gulf nation now looking to expand its soft power and diversify its economy – entirely banned intoxicants. You can still have it in designated areas and bars.

But the ban on alcohol in stadiums and the subsequent uproar have revealed at least two issues concerning both Qatar and the sports' Western fanbase at large.

First of all, the inseparable connection between alcohol and Western sports fans.

And secondly, Qatar's geopolitical ambitions of retaining authority and leadership in the Islamic world, contrasting its overall ambition of spreading its soft power all across the globe.

After all, as the host of the football world cup – the biggest sports show on earth – they have all the world's attention. By now, we know how they used their key power – abundance of money – to win this bid to host it; and how the construction of the stadiums in extreme heat and unsafe working conditions led to the deaths of thousands of workers from Bangladesh, India and Nepal.

And now, with this decision to ban alcohol or not open up to LGBT-Q people as the liberal West wants, they are sending a message to the Islamic world that they are holding their values up.

So it is a win-win strategy for Qatar anyways – both in terms of winning the world's attention to strengthen their soft clout, and manoeuvring the Muslim world's support, against a backdrop of some moves that are unpopular with western folks.

The inseparable

After the Qatari authorities announced the alcohol ban in stadiums, it immediately gave Fifa a $75m headache. The decision has complicated Fifa's $75m contract with the brewer of Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The Guardian quoted a representative from one major sponsor that many partners had felt "let down by Fifa in lots of ways… Everyone has a gripe in some way or form… here is a lot of 'regrouping' going [on] to understand what the options are contractually speaking."

It is not only football, but all sports, in general, have a big connection to booze.

According to Sportcal, a sports market intelligence company, 30 leading alcoholic beverage brands spend more than $760m each year across more than 280 active deals to sponsor the biggest competitions.

An Al Jazeera story mentions that Heineken spends $118.3m annually on sports sponsorships. They have currently 25 active deals, including a $21.4m annual deal with Formula One and a $10m deal with Major League Soccer. Also, Bud Light's $230m annual NFL sponsorship, of its total sports spending of $249.7m, makes it the industry's biggest spender on sports advertising.

While the booze connection to sports can be dated back to as long as the Romans, the art was mastered in the United States in the early days of radio, when the companies realised that their names mentioned with a particular team could help raise a loyal customer base. Besides, the holy trinity of sports, beer, and masculinity, also came into play by this time.

"Here the culture of sports and its pairing with the culture of beer and drinking is naturalised," the same Al Jazeera story mentions academic Lawrence Wenner. "[It] becomes a sign or code of acceptable masculinity, signing that you are a 'real man' rather than one who 'opts out' and thus may have his masculinity called into question. So it's an embedded exercise in socialisation of what it means to be a male – a male, of course, on the terms and conditions of 'the good old days' when 'men were men'. I call this kind of masculinity ideal 'vestigial hypermasculinity'."

Question of inclusivity in a globalised world

On Qatar's part, the compromise between the values of its people, and the western crowd's choice of celebration, could have been smoother if perhaps the question of geopolitical navigation within the Islamic world – an ambition they ventured into for long – didn't come to the fore.

But even after recognising the legitimate demands of the western crowds for their choice of alcohol in sports celebrations, the question of cultural inclusivity in a globalised sport like football cannot be denied as well.

Just like stadiums in Brazil, France, or Scotland ban alcohol, the ban is implemented in a majority of Muslim countries as well. Also, alcohol is not the last cultural difference between the east and west.

Should every country change its laws and values as a precondition to hosting a world cup? Or should Fifa, and football fans, be more open to cultural differences across the world?

There should be a fine line in between. Perhaps the controversy in the Qatar world cup raises new questions that the future will have an answer.

Masum Billah. TBS Sketch