Editorial: Banning alcohol sports sponsors

NEWCASTLE, Australia, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- The alcohol industry's sponsorship of sports in Australia and Britain should be banned and replaced with a dedicated alcohol tax, researchers said.

Dr. Kypros Kypri of Newcastle University in Australia and Dr. Kerry O'Brien of the University of Manchester in England wrote in an editorial in the journal Addiction alcohol industry representatives and sports administrators in Britain and Australia were dismissive of their findings despite their publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The 2008 study showed alcohol-industry sponsorship of elite and community sports was associated with hazardous drinking among sports participants, the researchers say.

The researchers say the Portman Group, a public relations body set up by the alcohol industry, and the European Sponsorship Association, whose members include leading alcohol producers, said that there was no causal relationship between sponsorship and alcohol misuse.

"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," Kypri said in a statement.

"In addition, it is clear that these organizations 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."