When Angelica Maria discussed alcohol harm on a radio show, a worried caller offered sport as the solution. Angelica Maria shares her response in this insightful and heart-felt column. She shares why the caller was right, but also why he is wrong. Big Alcohol’s capture of sports – illustrated by the marketing machine they deploy during the football World Cup.
Behind Águila, Brahma, and Modelo’s “local” World Cup campaigns hides one transnational beer giant, AB InBev, turning football into a channel for pushing their harmful product onto children and families, even slipping “alcohol-free” lookalikes into spaces meant to be alcohol-free.
The article provides unique insights into these machinations. But it also explores a better reality: The solutions are popular, proven and within governments’ reach: comprehensive bans on alcohol advertising and sponsorship can restore sport as the healthy, joyful, connecting space it was always meant to be.
