BrewDog has addressed the huge backlash it received this week, which stemmed from the brewery declaring itself an ‘anti-sponsor’ of the World Cup in Qatar while still screening the games in its bars.
The Scottish beer brand has been accused of hypocrisy and of profiting from the tournament, despite taking a very public stance against Qatar.
Its ‘World F*Cup’ campaign will see profits from all Lost Lager sold during the World Cup given to fight human rights abuse.
BrewDog said: “Football’s been dragged through the mud, before a single ball’s been kicked. Let’s be honest: Qatar won it through bribery. On an industrial scale.
“Football is meant to be for everyone. But in Qatar, homosexuality is illegal, flogging is an accepted form of punishment, and it’s OK for 6,500 workers to die building your stadium.
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“That’s why we’re kicking off. And we’re putting our money where our mouth is, with all the profits from our Lost Lager sold during the tournament going to fight human rights abuse.
BrewDog’s anti-World Cup posters. Credit: Saatchi & Saatchi / BrewDog
“We’re proud to be launching BrewDog as an anti-sponsor of the World F*Cup. To be clear we love football, we just don’t love corruption, abuse and death.
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“So join us. Let’s raise a glass to the players. To the fans. To free speech. And two fingers to anyone who thinks a World Cup in Qatar makes sense.”
The campaign has been described as ‘superficial and meaningless’ after the brewery confirmed its bars across the country would still be showing the games.
"Yeah Qatar sucks, so come watch it in our bars and if you buy this one specific drink we'll give some of the proceeds to a charity"
Brewdog is just repeatedly being shown as superficial shite, aren't they. What a meaningless stance to take. https://t.co/OXnUy99Pes
They replied to one critic on Twitter to say: “We are, because don’t want to stop people watching the football. Corruption shouldn’t stop this. Besides, the more football we show, the more Lost is sold, the more money goes to charity.”
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BrewDog co-founder James Watt has now addressed the criticism in a post on LinkedIn, saying that the company thought ‘long and hard’ about its decision to screen the World Cup matches.
He said that BrewDog didn’t want to ‘deny our loyal customers the chance to enjoy them together just because FIFA bizarrely chose to award the world cup to Qatar in very questionable circumstances’.
He also wrote: “All profits from Lost Lager sold during the tournament will be donated to human rights charities. The truth is, we will raise more money to do good if we show the matches in our bars.”
James’ post said: “People are still going to watch the games – so giving them the opportunity to watch the games both to raise awareness and raise money to drive positive change at the same time is worthwhile.
“To be very clear, in doing so we aren’t supporting FIFA or Qatar’s human rights track record, we are supporting those that love the game and hate to see it dragged through the mud like this.”
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He continued: “We will never please all the people all the time. We are now very used to our critics piling in. But in the space of 24 hours we’ve massively raised awareness of this incredibly important issue and we will follow this up, we hope, with a sizeable donation to charity to further support the cause.
“At BrewDog we have always taken a stand for the things that we believe it and that is something we will always continue to do.”
Featured image: Saatchi & Saatchi / BrewDog
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Council prioritises support for those ‘most in need’ in Manchester’s budget for the year
Emily Sergeant
Support for those ‘most in need’ has been prioritised in Manchester’s budget for the year.
Manchester City Council outlined its spending plans to deliver services, make lives better, and ultimately ‘improve the city’ throughout this year and into the next, with the allocation of the £894 million revenue budget highlighting the main priorities, as well as the demands on services that councils are seeing nationwide.
Councils in Greater Manchester remain under ‘significant financial pressure’ as they grapple with the difficult legacy of 14 years of national Government cuts to budgets, with Manchester itself being one of the areas hardest hit.
However, there has been improved funding for 2025/26 under the new Government, and Manchester has actually received one of the biggest increases in the country.
We’ve set our budget for 2025 to 26.
It’s good news for high streets city-wide.
From transforming Wythenshawe Civic Centre to brilliant new opportunities north of the city from Victoria to Holt Town, Manchester’s neighbourhoods are on the up.
— Manchester City Council (@ManCityCouncil) March 3, 2025
According to the Council, the 2025/26 budget prioritises ‘supporting those most in need’ with a significant spend on children and adults social services, helping residents out of poverty, and helping with the cost of living crisis.
Other plans forming part of this year’s local budget includes reducing homelessness and building new homes that are ‘genuinely affordable’.
Protecting Manchester’s libraries and leisure centres, investing in the borough’s 148 parks and green spaces, and restoring local neighbourhoods and high streets are also included.
This morning, we set our budget for 2025 to 26.
Every pound goes into making residents’ lives better.
To round it off, the Council is allocating an extra £5 million to tackle fly tipping, clean up the streets, and make sure the city is ‘clean, green, and tidy’.
“Our top priority is making sure that everything we do works towards making our city, and the lives of our residents, better,” commented Cllr Bev Craig, who is the leader of Manchester City Council, as the budget was announced last week.
“We’re pleased to be able to set a budget which continues to work hard for the people of Manchester -not just delivering the essential functions which they expect but also investing in making lives better and improving the city.”
Featured Image – Manchester City Council
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One of the 2025 Oscar winners was a favourite at a recent film festival in Manchester
Danny Jones
It’s not often we get to say that Greater Manchester can lay any sort of claim to Oscars fame, but once in a while it happens and in this case, we’re only a few degrees of separation away from the latest Academy Award-winning film thanks to a recent film festival.
Being most recently hosted in Manchester once again, the 2024 edition of the UK Jewish Film Festival saw a number of shorts, student films and indie projects associated with the religion spotlighted – one of which just won not one but two bits of bronze.
Picking up not only the award for this year’s award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ for the film itself but with Succession favourite and Home Alone child star, Kieran Culkin’s role winning him ‘Best Supporting Actor’, the much-celebrated A Real Pain has now won an Oscar.
But the part of all this that we’re especially happy about is that one of the first times it was seen in the UK happened right here in Manchester city centre late last year.
This year’s ‘Best Original Screenplay’ award winner at the Oscars, just a few months after screening in Manchester. Have you seen it yet?
The now Oscar-winning picture, which just so happens to be the second original feature film from Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network, Zombieland, Justice League), has been delighting audiences ever since its debut at Sundance in January 2024 and went on to premiere at several international film festivals.
However, the second time it was screened here in Britain prior to its official UK release nearly a full 12 months later (8 Jan 2025) at the UK Jewish Film Festival, was in 0161, returning for another consecutive year across multiple Greater Manchester venues.
Without giving away too much about the plot itself, the synopsis of the film reads as follows: “Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour through Poland to honour their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history.”
Shown to us Mancs for the first time at Cineworld Didsbury on Thursday, 17 November last year, you won’t be surprised to hear it was one of the most popular picks of this festival too.
UK Jewish Film Festival is coming to Manchester! 🤩
Check out some of the amazing films that we'll be screening in Manchester.
1. A Real Pain 🚆 2. The Performance 🕺 3. British-Jewish Life On Film: Manchester ✡️ 4. Golda's War Diaries 🇮🇱
A Real Pain has been largely described as a buddy comedy and a road trip movie by lots of critics but there’s also tonnes of drama and serious subject matter that it gets stuck into.
Touching not only the obvious themes of Judaism and Zionism but also family, the Holocaust specifically and theology in general, the film has gone down as a deeply important piece of cinema for a whole community and plenty of people beyond it.
Admittedly, the Greater Manchester connection to the film might only be a slight one but given its new Oscars fame and how well-reviewed the film has been ever since we saw it at the UK Jewish Film (UJFF) Festival, we’re absolutely jumping on the bandwagon and we’re glad to keep supporting events like this.
Make sure you check out the UJFF the next time it comes to our neck of the woods. Applications to enter a film into the 2025 festival are now open.
Side note: it also led to arguably one of the best acceptance speeches in years:
Kieran Culkin’s acceptance speech for his first-ever #Oscar
“[My wife] said we can have 4 children when I win an Oscar… let’s get cracking with these kids!”
Daisy Jackson -
9th November 2022 
