Alcohol and Sports: Molson Coors’ SPFL Sponsorship Puts Scottish Youth at Risk

Molson Coors has recently entered into a sponsorship deal with the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), using football as a platform to promote one of its alcohol brands. This partnership raises significant public health concerns, particularly regarding the normalization of alcohol use and its potential influence on younger audiences.

Alcohol harm is already a major health issue in Scotland, where alcohol consumption contributes to thousands of deaths and hospitalizations annually. Scotland has long struggled with. Alcohol is not just a personal health concern – it burdens the healthcare system and contributes to wider societal harms, such as violence, accidents, and family breakdowns.

The fact that football, a sport that inspires loyalty and passion across all age groups, is now being used to market alcohol sends a dangerous message. Football’s wide reach, particularly among young fans, means that this sponsorship deal could influence younger audiences to view alcohol as an integral part of socializing and sporting events. Research has shown that exposure to alcohol advertising can lead to earlier and more harmful drinking habits among adolescents.

Dr. Peter Rice, the chairman of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP), expressed serious concerns to the BBC, saying: “Right now Scotland is in the grip of an alcohol public health crisis that needs to be addressed – encouraging people to consume more is not the answer. This lack of duty of care to fans flies in the face of our research which shows that while many football fans recognise the need to generate income for Scottish football, there is not so much appetite for that income to come from the alcohol industry.”

Promotion, or any marketing strategies, is Big Alcohol’s activity to drive alcohol availability and acceptability, to perpetuate the alcohol norm, and to place alcohol at the center of people’s thoughts and preferences, communities’ practices, and societies’ customs. The focus of this DUBIOUS FIVE strategy is the people and their beliefs about alcohol products, the public and their attitudes about and behavior around alcohol products, and the consumers and how much, how often they buy and consume alcohol brands.

Source:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2kl233lr5o

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