Only VIPs allowed to drink alcohol inside 2024 Paris Olympic venues
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Paris 2024 organisers have decided not to seek an exemption to a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol in stadiums.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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PARIS – VIPs can quaff champagne to their hearts’ delight while watching the Paris Olympics, but the average fan will have to make do with soft drinks and water after organisers decided not to seek an exemption to a law prohibiting the sale of alcohol in stadiums.
Under Evin’s Law, which has been in place since 1991, alcohol is banned from sale to the public inside stadiums in France, and Games organisers had not sought an exemption, a Paris 2024 spokesman told Reuters.
The law allows for an exemption for 10 events per organiser per year per municipality.
“Paris 2024 will be organising more than 700 competition sessions over 15 days of competition,” the spokesman said.
Such an exemption would have required a change in the law for an event the size of the Games.
“It is the strict application of French law that allows catering services that include the provision of alcohol to operate in hospitality areas as they are governed by a separate law on catering,” the spokesman added.
This means that beer, wine, spirits and champagne are all allowed in VIP and corporate hospitality areas for the global sporting showpiece in the French capital.
Technically, alcohol will not be on sale in these areas, as the VIP packages (those at around €5,000 or S$7,400 per ticket) already include free champagne on arrival, or dinner with wine.
Fans in France have been lobbying for alcohol to be sold in stadiums across the country, according to sports website InsideTheGames, as they complained about the hypocrisy of selling it only in VIP areas.
In 2019, France’s then Health Minister Agnes Buzyn suggested that alcohol should also be banned from VIP areas, but her idea was dismissed by the drinks industry.
Alcohol was also banned from stadiums at the pandemic-delayed Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 but events were eventually held without spectators because of Covid-19.
Beer and wine were available at the 2012 and 2016 Games in London and Rio de Janeiro.
There is better news for fans travelling to France for the 2023 Rugby World Cup as organisers have negotiated an exemption for the tournament, which will be staged from September to October.
“We cannot imagine a Rugby World Cup without beer in the stadiums,” Jacques Rivoal, the president of the organising committee of the World Cup, said in May.
Japanese beer company Asahi is a sponsor at the event, and beer will be sold at the 48 matches in the nine French cities.
In November, Fifa changed its policy two days before the start of the World Cup in Qatar to ban alcohol sales in all the eight stadiums. REUTERS
