A worker is pictured in the Budweiser bar at the opening of the FIFA fan festival.
Budweiser, the major World Cup sponsor it owns, had been set to exclusively sell alcoholic beer within the ticketed perimeter surrounding each of the eight stadiums three hours before and one hour after each game during the four-week event. In July, reflecting on information that the stadiums’ stands would be alcohol-free, AB InBev chief executive Michel Doukeris said the tournament would offer a great opportunity to showcase non-alcoholic brands, such as Budweiser Zero.
“Budweiser now has a costly logistical problem of what to do with distributed stock it can no longer sell, and there could be knock on effects for contracts in their supply chain,” she said, adding it would also have lost brand visibility during matches. “We tried and that is why I give you the late change of policy,” he said. “We tried to see if it was possible.”