DOHA, Qatar — The tiny but fabulously wealthy Gulf nation of Qatar has spent 12 years preparing to host soccer’s World Cup, a marathon of planning and patience during which it has redrawn an entire nation by building stadiums and hotels, roads and sidewalks, even a gleaming new subway system.
Yet it was not until Friday that it finally settled on what to do about the sale of beer during the tournament, and the decision — to the consternation of the roughly 1 million fans set to arrive in the coming days — was to ban the sale of it at the event’s eight stadiums.