Richards: Wants fans to be able to booze

The sale of alcohol is severely restricted in the Middle Eastern country and Richards said that needed to be relaxed.

Speaking at the International Sport Security Conference in Doha, Richards said: "In our country and in Germany, we have a culture. We call it, 'We would like to go for a pint', and that pint is a pint of beer.

"It is our culture as much as your culture [in Qatar] is not drinking. There has to be a happy medium.

"If you don't do something about it, you are starting to bury your head in the sand a little bit because it needs addressing.

"You might be better off saying don't come. But a World Cup without England, Germany, the Dutch, Danes and Scandinavians. It's unthinkable."

Hassan Al Thawadi, general secretary of Qatar 2022, has always insisted that alcohol will be available for visiting fans at special zones but he said today he did not see the need for beer to be sold in stadiums.

He said: "For me personally, I don't see the reason for it being in the stadiums, but it's something we're discussing with FIFA."

Richards, an FA board member, also launched an attack on FIFA and UEFA for "stealing the game" from England - and over the failed 2018 World Cup bid.

He told the conference that England had given the world the game of football. Richards said: "For 50 years, we owned the game, we were the governance of the game. We wrote the rules and designed the pitches.

"Then, 50 years later, some guy came along and said you're liars and they actually stole it. It was called FIFA. Fifty years later, another gang came along called UEFA and stole a bit more."

He also said FIFA were responsible for England 2018 spending millions of pounds - he referred to £19million although FA accounts last year revealed the full cost was £21million - on a bid with the odds stacked against them by FIFA who wanted to take the World Cup to new territories.

He said: "Why couldn't FIFA have said, we want to take it to the Gulf, to the eastern bloc? We spent £19million on that bid.

"When we went for it everybody believed we had a chance. But as we went through it a pattern emerged that suggested maybe we didn't."