Call for ban on alcohol sports sponsorship
Tuesday November 10th, 2009
Alcohol advertising and sponsorship should be banned from sporting events, senior doctors and campaigners said today.
The proposal marks a fresh effort to get alcohol abuse in Britain treated as seriously as tobacco has been in the last decade.
Banning tobacco sponsorship of sport was one of the first acts of Britain's new Labour government in 1997 - although, controversially, motor-racing was excluded.
Two senior scientists today put forward the case for a ban on alcohol sponsorship in the journal Addiction.
The
proposal won backing from the Royal College of Physicians of London, UK.
In the journal Dr Kypros Kypri, from Newcastle University, Australia, and Dr Kerry O'Brien, from Manchester University, UK, say a tax on alcohol could be used to raise cash for sport and compensate for loss of sponsorship.
They say that up to 80 per cent of alcohol TV advertising may be channeled into sports sponsorship - based on reports from the USA.
Dr O'Brien said: "Sport administrators are sending mixed messages to participants and fans when, on the one hand, they embrace and peddle alcohol via their sport, while on the other they punish individual sport stars and fans when they display loutish behaviour while intoxicated."
Dr Kypri said: "The latest moves by the major sporting codes in Australia to lobby against the regulation of alcohol sponsorship of sport show that these bodies remain in denial of alcohol-related problems in their sports.
"In addition, it is clear that these organisations have enormous vested interests in continuing to receive alcohol money and government should be careful to act in the public interest rather than to cave in to the sports and Big Booze."
They cite evidence from New Zealand last year showing that sporting stars who get alcohol industry sponsorship - which may include cheap drink - tended to be heavy drinkers compared with other players.
Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians, backed the call.
He said: "Alcohol misuse is responsible for thousands of deaths every year, and a number of other countries, recognising the potential for consumption to be influenced as much by these insidious forms of marketing as it is by conventional advertising, have taken steps to stop brewers and retailers from exploiting the positive and healthy image of sport."
Kypri K., O'Brien K., Miller P. Time for precautionary action on alcohol industry funding of sporting bodies. Addiction 2009; 104: 1949-1950.
Tags: Australia | Drug and Alcohol Abuse | Fitness | UK News
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