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- Survey shows post-pandemic increase in drinking for some
- Scottish Government commit to further plans to restrict alcohol marketing
- Challenge and Change: Rod Anderson
- Parliament must come together to renew and reinvigorate MUP
- A responsible drinking campaign that features cocktail recipes
- Unacceptable rise in alcohol-specific deaths
- Health experts share concerns about complaint made on MUP evaluation
- Decline in alcohol treatment in Scotland
- Challenge and Change: Lived Experience Voices on Alcohol Marketing
- Blog post for Alcohol Awareness Week 2023
- Final verdict on MUP
- Alcohol and diabetes
- Doctors say lack of response on alcohol deaths could spell disaster for Scotland
- MUP reduces deaths and hospital admissions
- Alcohol hospital admissions continue to be too high
- Lessons learned from countries with marketing restrictions
- What is the effect of alcohol marketing on people with or at risk of an alcohol problem?
- ONS figures show highest alcohol deaths on record
- MUP and alcohol sales
- Scottish Government launches alcohol marketing consultation
- MUP and alcohol products and prices
- Scottish Health Survey 2021
- New licensing policy review guide
- Slight increase in alcohol-specific deaths
- Health campaigners call on Scottish Government to regulate alcohol packaging
- Scottish charity calls for ban on all alcohol promotion
- New NCD Prevention Report - Mapping Future Harm
- Online Alcohol Sales & Deliveries: A survey of young people in Scotland
- Four years of MUP
- Prominent health warnings make drinking “unappealing”
- Insights from People in Recovery
- Meet our Engagement Team Marc
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- Report on alcohol sales and harm in Scotland during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Sugar content in wine revealed
- Alcohol hospital admissions lower during pandemic
- Study reveals those already at risk from heavy drinking bought more alcohol during lockdowns
- Alcohol policy measures could reduce ambulance callouts
- 18.6% increase in deaths from alcohol in 2020
- Widespread support for calls to increase minimum unit price for alcohol to 65p
- Students as Change Agents
- Health charities call for action to save lives from Scotlands biggest killers
- Three quarters of Scots back new controls to help protect children from alcohol advertising
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- How can alcohol labels be improved to help people make informed consumption choices
- Health experts call for better alcohol labelling
- Young people and their views on alcohol marketing
- Lowest alcohol sales in Scotland for 26 years
- Minimum unit pricing has lasting impact study shows
- Euros renews call for action to protect children from alcohol sports sponsorship
- Current alcohol labelling of little relevance to young adult drinkers
- Governments should step up efforts to tackle harmful alcohol consumption
- Scottish public and leading health experts back changes to alcohol labelling
- AFS calls for 65p minimum unit price for alcohol
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- Alcohol labelling reform is way past its sell by date
- Alcohol policy priorities for the next parliament
- Young drinkers believe prominent health warnings on alcohol could boost risk awareness
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- How can we prevent alcohol deaths?
- Alcohol Deaths and Minimum Unit Pricing
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- Young Scots show support for restrictions on alcohol marketing
- New release of alcohol related hospital admissions
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- Alcohol Deaths Prevention Support
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- AFS publish Review of Licensing Board Annual Functions Reports 2017-2018
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- No place for alcohol marketing in sport
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- The Alcohol Framework 2018 Preventing Harm
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- Recent reporting on alcohol sales data
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- Drinks companies keeping consumers in dark about risky drinking
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- Minimum pricing blog
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- Minimum pricing - European court ruling
Euros renews call for action to protect children from alcohol sports sponsorship
Health campaigners are highlighting the inappropriateness of big alcohol brands sponsoring high profile sports events, such as the ongoing European Football Championships and exposing millions of under-18s to alcohol brands.
The deliberate product placement of Heineken beer branding in front of football stars and managers, like Paul Pogba, Joachim Low and Kalvin Phillips, during recent press conferences for the Euros is misleading. It suggests that the players are enjoying a post-match drink, when in reality that is not the case.
It comes as research shows that exposure to alcohol sponsorship is associated with increased levels of alcohol consumption and risky drinking amongst schoolchildren, as well as sportspeople.[1] Sports sponsorship also exposes children to significant amounts of alcohol advertisement: almost a third of 11-19-year-olds in the UK recall seeing alcohol sponsorship for sports or events at least weekly, while one in twenty recall seeing alcohol sponsorship daily or almost daily.[2] Exposure is especially high during big sporting events broadcast on TV, such as the current European Football Championships.
In Scotland, one in four of us are regularly drinking above the Chief Medical Officer’s low-risk guidelines and every year alcohol is responsible for almost four thousand deaths, over thirty-thousand hospital admissions and countless problems for families and communities.
Alcohol Focus Scotland have called on the Scottish Government to curb sponsorship of professional sport by alcohol companies in line with the World Health Organization recommendations. Restricting alcohol marketing is one of the most effective ways to reduce alcohol harm.[3] The majority of the public supports a ban on alcohol companies sponsoring sporting events.[4]
Alison Douglas, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland said, “Sport should inspire good health and active participation - and to use it as a promotional vehicle for an addictive and health-harming product is simply unacceptable.
“Whether the product in question is low alcohol or not is beside the point – people are seeing the Heineken logo plastered across the Euros and making the link with the overall brand. Sponsorship by alcohol companies has been woven into the fabric of the sport we love capitalising on our emotional connections to our teams and players so that we associate certain alcohol brands with healthy activity and high-performing athletes.
“Exposure to alcohol marketing has been shown as a cause of binge drinking and drinking onset among young people. It also influences their attitudes and increases their likelihood of developing problems with alcohol later in life. We need to challenge the idea that alcohol and sport go together and introduce suitable restrictions on marketing and sponsorship to protect our children and young people. This is something that children themselves are asking us to do.”
17 June 2021
[1] Brown, K. (2016). Association between alcohol sport sponsorship and consumption: A systematic review.
[2] Critchlow, N. et al. (2019). Awareness of alcohol marketing, ownership of alcohol branded merchandise, and the association with alcohol consumption, higher-risk drinking, and drinking susceptibility: A cross-sectional survey in the UK.
[3] World Health Organization (2017). Tackling NCDs: “best buys” and other recommended interventions for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases.
[4] Alcohol Health Alliance (2018). How we drink, what we think.