“Offering Free Public Screenings, Cultural Events, and Family Activities, While Being Alcohol-Free”
Sports Business Journal reports:
“Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said that the city will ‘set up 18 free soccer fan festivals across the capital during the World Cup, offering free public screenings, cultural events, food fairs and family activities, while being alcohol-free.’
“The main Fan Fest organized by FIFA ‘will be held in the capital’s main square’ called Zocalo. Seven of the fan festival sites ‘will broadcast all World Cup matches’ during the 39-day tournament, while ‘the remaining 11 will show key games, including matches involving Mexico.'”
Assessment
Mexico City’s decision to make all 18 of its official World Cup fan festivals alcohol-free is a notable move – and a sharp contrast to the alcohol-saturated environments that FIFA and its beer sponsor, AB InBev, have pushed at previous tournaments. The 2026 World Cup, jointly hosted by Mexico, the United States, and Canada, is the most commercially lucrative tournament in FIFA history, with AB InBev’s Budweiser remaining a top-tier sponsor. For Mexico City to prioritise public safety and family access across its own fan zones shows that host cities can create alcohol-free spaces even within a tournament heavily shaped by alcohol industry sponsorship.
The context matters. FIFA’s relationship with alcohol sponsors has historically overridden local policy preferences. At the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, beer sales were not permitted around stadiums – but only after AB InBev had aggressively lobbied to override local regulations. In Brazil’s 2014 World Cup, FIFA successfully pressured the government to reverse its own stadium alcohol-free policy to accommodate sponsors. Mexico City’s fan festivals sit outside FIFA’s direct control, which gives the city more room to set its own terms – and with 18 venues spread across all boroughs, seven screening every match over the 39-day tournament, it is doing so at a considerable scale.
At the federal level, Mexican civil society organisations have pushed for comprehensive alcohol policy reform with limited results so far. The fan festivals do not change that picture, but they add a visible, high-profile data point: a major host city choosing to run its World Cup programming without alcohol sales.