When Qatar announced an alcohol ban at last year’s football World Cup, there was uproar. The decision, made public a few days before the tournament kicked off in November, was proof for critics that the event should never have been held in the country.

But in English stadiums today a similar – and perhaps even more bizarre – rule relating to alcohol is enforced. Fans at Premier League, Championship, League One and League Two games are banned from drinking ‘in sight of the pitch’. They can booze to their heart’s content in stadium bars, but if they take a drink back to their seat, they risk being arrested and fined.

For years, football fans have quietly tolerated this diktat. But sometimes it takes an outsider – in this case an American actor, Charlie Day – to expose how ludicrous some rules really are. Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney revealed last week how his friend Day nearly ended up in hot water for apparently drinking a beer while he watched a game. ‘Americans, we don’t understand that rule, we didn’t know that that was the rule,’ McElhenney said. He’s right to be baffled: after all, what is the point of the law?

The ban was introduced in football’s dark days during the 1980s, when hooligans ruled the terraces. But, in the decades since, a lot has changed: the yobs have gone – most have grown up or ended up with football banning orders. Nowadays the enormous police presence at games means that trouble is rare: those who do get up to no good are soon carted off. But if the beautiful game has changed, the beer ban rule has stayed resolutely in place.

The ban was introduced in football’s dark days during the 1980s

As ever with bad regulations, this one has had unintended side effects. For starters, football fans must make a difficult choice at half time: visit the toilet or get a drink. Of course, when thousands of people go to the bar or the bog simultaneously, huge queues are inevitable. The line for the toilet snakes through the concourse; alongside it, the queue for the bar grows ridiculously long. For those who opt for a drink, you’re likely to spend at least ten minutes queuing; by the time you make it to the front, you have about five minutes or so to down – or ditch – your drink and make it back to your seat in time for the second half. If the point of the law is to prevent boozing, wouldn’t it be better to allow fans to take their drinks back to the seats and sip it slowly, rather than encourage them to load up – and drink quickly – during the break?

Football’s stadium seat booze ban also encourages pre-drinking before games. Fans know that if they want a civilised pint – rather than one endured standing on a concrete floor close to a stinking urinal – they ought to go to the pub before the game. But doing so means that fans are more likely to load up on alcohol before the match – and arrive at the stadium tanked up.

The rule has created another victim: the wives and partners of football fans. When blokes (and it does tend to be men) disappear to watch the game, the beer ban at the stadium means that many extend their football excursion to an all-day event. Why not let them drink while they watch the game? At least that way football widows will only have to put up without their other halves for a short time, rather than all day.

Tory MP Tracey Crouch, a politician whose affection for football is genuine rather than confected, recognises this law is outdated. ‘We kettle people into drinking quickly at half-time. And that is the unhealthy aspect of the football fan’s relationship with alcohol. They drink a lot in a short space of time. So my recommendation is to pilot this and not have to down a pint at half-time,’ she said.

That was in 2021, but football fans are still waiting for a change – and it seems likely that, when the season resumes in August, nothing will have changed. After all, we’ve been here before: in 2018, the English Football League called for a review on the ruling on alcohol. Shaun Harvey, the chief executive at the time, said the current regulation was ‘disproportionate’. Again, nothing was done.

Will Rishi Sunak’s government now do something about changing this outdated legislation? The Tories have a working-class problem: Boris Johnson made it to Downing Street thanks to the support of Red Wall voters, many of whom had never backed the Tories before. They are unlikely to do so again, having realised that the Tories have failed to deliver on many of their promises. But while it is, by itself, not likely to make the difference between victory or defeat for Sunak, scrapping this outdated law is one thing that voters will thank the Tories for. Many of these Red Wall constituencies – places like Stoke, Walsall, Mansfield and Middlesbrough – have a football club at the heart of their communities. Why doesn’t Sunak offer an olive branch to these areas by ditching this law for good?

In the meantime, football fans – unlike cricket and rugby supporters, who can drink while watching their teams – will continue to down their half-time pints. It isn’t only the fans and their families who lose out: teams in the lower leagues, particularly in League One or Two, rely on fans’ spending on match days to stay afloat. Unlike their counterparts in the Premier League and Championship, which are supported by enormous revenue from broadcasters, lower teams need all the help they can get. But instead of fans spending their money in the ground, many will simply drink in local pubs and keep their wallets in their pockets come kick off.

I remember going to Wimbledon for the first time in 2014. After years of being treated like an animal at football grounds, I couldn’t believe I was allowed to enjoy a drink from a bottle of wine while watching the tennis. How civilised! Football fans are grown ups too – indeed they have to be to afford tickets – so why not start treating them as such?