Watching the World Cup with friends? Here's which spilled pint will damage your phone the most — beware of cider!

Football supporters who spill and throw pints could ruin your smartphone

Cider, with its high sugar content, can wreck the insides of even an IP68-rated phone

If you fall foul of such spillage and booze-based buffoonery, make sure you take action to clean and protect your phone

As a man who hates waste and has a distinct apathy for over-the-top football celebrations, the seemingly new phenomenon of throwing alcoholic pints into the air when terminal runners-up England score a goal has left me with an even greater disdain for sloshed soccer supporters.

For US readers

A quick note for our US readers: this pint-flinging foolery may not be something you're entirely familiar with, but as hosts of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, it's important that we make you, too, aware of this beverage-based danger to your smartphone.

Research from Aldi notes that, during the 2024 European Football Championship, nearly 5 million pints were spilt every time the England team scored a goal, and as such, avoiding accelerated alcohol during the 2026 FIFA World Cup could be challenging — even for those of you lucky enough to support another nation.

The best I can do to combat this moronic mindlessness is to flag the booze that poses the most damage to smartphones — using data sourced by phone comparison and recycling site Compare and Recycle — with the hope that the next time Freddie Flag-jumper, Gravy Dave, and Barry Bulldogs decide to send their pint skyward, you'll be primed and ready to take cover.

My prejudices aside, even if you’re at a more civilized public house — perhaps one with a nice selection of cask ales and fancy sausage rolls — pints can still be spilt via more innocent bumps of a hand or slips of a tray, and so hopefully, you'll find this information useful even if you're not a footy-mad hooligan.

Now you might say to me, ‘Roland, surely the best phones are waterproof…’ and I’d say ‘correct, have a tech sticker’. But I’d also point out that the folks at Compare and Recycle have noted that the composition of commonly chugged boozy beverages can damage even phones rated against a dunk in the drink.

“While many modern flagship smartphones have an IP67 or IP68 rating, which gives some level of water resistance, this is typically only for fresh water and offers little proven protection against the sugary, alcoholic liquids found in beers and ciders,” says Lee Elliott, chief product officer at Compare and Recycle.

Even when a phone is wiped clean of spilt drink, the sugars in it can suck in moisture from the surrounding environment and get into areas of the phone that might be resistant to standard water but can be corroded by sugar.

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“Add in the alcohol content, which can act as a mild solvent over time, gradually degrading things like the oleophobic coating (an oil-repellent layer) on your screen or rubber seals around ports and buttons, and you can start to understand why a spilt pint is a much bigger problem for your phone than you might initially realize,” Lee explains.

Particular pints are purveyors of palaver for portable phones (thank you), with cider apparently being the worst offender due to its high sugar content; so I’d suggest heightened caution when watching England at a Somerset-based public house or alcohol-allotting establishment.

Beer is less of a problem, but Kronenbourg 1664 (a reasonable lager in this seasoned drinker’s opinion) is the most phone-unfriendly tipple, according to Compare and Recycle's list. Here's the full list of drinks, ordered from most to least hazardous:

The ranked list

Kopparberg

Old Mout

Rekorderlig

Magners

Strongbow Dark Fruits

Blackthorn

Woodpecker Cider

Thatchers Gold

Bulmers

Strongbow Original

Kronenbourg 1664

Estrella Damm

San Miguel

Stella Artois

Peroni

Heineken

Grolsch

Corona

Birra Moretti

Budweiser

Analysis: clean your phone, rein it in

“Spillages during a football match are inevitable. If you aren’t the one spilling the drink on someone else, chances are, your friend will spill it on you. It’s just one of those match-day mishaps,” says Lee, which I feel paints a depressing picture of British society in 2026.

Yes, we’re allowed a mishap, but if you’re not being careful with your beverage in the age of the £7 pint, I think you really need to have a good look at yourself in the mirror. If you’re deliberately throwing a pint in the air when an overpaid ball-kicker with a love of dramatics comes close to the opposition’s goal line, well… I’m not sure I can really say what I think of that on TechRadar.

My advice is to keep your phone in your pocket or handbag — if you’re at a pub, you should be sociable, not swiping at a screen — and act like a civilized human and simply cheer at the ‘beautiful game’ while keeping a firm grip on your drink. In short, don’t be a word that rhymes with stick or punt.

Nevertheless, if I put aside my views and accept Lee’s assertion that spillages are inevitable, the question is: what should you do to keep your phone safe? Compare and Recycle suggests the following:

Immediately turn your device off: While it’s tempting to check that your device is still working fully, electricity flowing through wet components causes short circuits.

Remove accessories: Phone cases are excellent for protecting your phone from falls, but keeping it on after a spilled pint can stop your device from drying out properly. Remove it immediately, along with any screen protectors, as the liquid can seep beneath imperfections and cause screen damage.

Rinse with water to remove sticky residue: This might sound counterintuitive, but if you get a decent amount of a pint or cider spilled on your phone, then it can actually be beneficial to give it a quick rinse under a slow-running tap to remove the spillage as soon as possible. This is because sugary residue can speed up the corrosion of things like the mainboard. Only do this when your phone is completely switched off. Quickly dry it with a clean, dry cloth, paying close attention to the charging port and speaker grills where liquid is most likely to have entered.

Drain the ports by tapping gently on the top of your phone: Gently tap your phone against the palm of your hand to help gravity do its work with the charging port and speaker grills facing downward. This will encourage any excess liquid to flow out of the openings.

Resist turning it back on too soon: The instinct after following these steps is to turn your phone back on and see if it still works, but it's best to keep it off and leave it to dry completely - even if that means waiting until the final whistle.

So, yeah, follow those tips to help your phone survive spillages.

But also, my tip would be to find friends that aren't utter galoots, yobs or knuckleheads, or watch a more civilized sport like tennis or F1.

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Roland Moore-Colyer is Managing Editor at TechRadar with a focus on phones and tablets, but a general interest in all things tech, especially those with a good story behind them. He can also be found writing about games, computers, and cars when the occasion arrives, and supports with the day-to-day running of TechRadar. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face and a nose for food markets.