Footy fans staying at shoddy ‘fan villages’ offered refund and new accommodation

An employee prepares a cabin at the Al-Emadi fan village in Doha (Picture: AFP via Getty Images)

Fed-up football supporters who forked out hundreds to stay in half-finished cabins at the World Cup have been offered refunds and free accommodation after Qatari officials stepped in.

Several ‘fan villages’ were hastily constructed to cope with the more than one million visitors expected to travel to the country for the four-week tournament.

But there has been a torrent of complaints about the state of the £200 a night rooms – brightly painted shipping containers – with supporters feeling let down by organisers.

Many have moaned about six-hour waits to enter the ‘sauna-like’ cabins, two-hour waits at food vans and having to walk up to a kilometre to find a working toilet.

Fans have complained of feeling let down by the state of their accommodation (Picture: Reuters)

Workers apply finishing touches at the Fan Village Cabins Free Zone (Picture: Reuters)

Accommodation cabins in the fan village in Doha (Picture: AP)

A deserted section of the Free Zone Fan Village (Picture: AP)

Shipping containers in the Fan Village Cabins Rawdat Al Jahhaniya accommodation base (Picture: EPA)

Accommodation tents are seen at a camp site in Al Khor, Qatar (Picture: AP)

The Qatari Supreme Committee, set up ‘to deliver the infrastructure and host country planning and operations’, said it was aware a number of fans faced delays checking into their accommodation.

In a statement to The Sun Online, it blamed ‘owner and operator negligence’.

They also conceded some units ‘have not met the required standards that were advertised to fans’, pledging that ‘rectifying these issues remains the utmost priority’.

The statement adds: ‘Full refunds are being offered to fans severely impacted by this issue as well as alternative accommodation which will be free of charge for the duration of their stay.’

Supporters who have turned up to the fan villages have posted photos and videos showing workmen still there and portions of the site appearing ‘unfinished’.

One fan shared a video supposedly taken at a bustling fanzone, saying: ‘This is the Corniche, it’s completely dead, there’s a game going on – Argentina versus Saudi Arabia.

‘They’ve piled in a load of these food vans, no one’s buying anything, they’ve got like two or three people per unit.

‘There’s no one around. There’s a screen over here so there’s a little gathering of people.

‘There’s only toilets once every kilometre here and we’ve come here on Tuesday, the third day of the World Cup, and we’ve asked to use the toilet and they won’t let us.

‘They’re still building it, they’re still installing it, f*** knows what’s going on.’

Bleak photos show the breakfast options at the £200 a night fan village (Picture: Jam Press)

Others have blasted the ‘breakfast box’ that apparently comes with the hefty nightly fee, with one comparing it to something they would get on school trips.

One fan wrote: ‘£200 to sleep in a plastic tent in the desert and eat something that looks like airline food?’

Another added: ‘Genuinely thought they had been given a potato, then realised it was a muffin.’

Fans had already been left frustrated by a last-minute U-turn on the sale of alcohol at stadiums.

Pro-LGBTQ+ supporters have also had their rainbow bucket hats, T-shirts and flags confiscated by heavy handed officials.

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The Qatari Supreme Committee conceded some units ‘have not met the required standards that were advertised to fans’.