Call for end to alcohol ads in football

Experts are calling for a ban on alcohol marketing in football, saying “self-regulation has probably reached its limit”, after studying footage of matches.

Celtic's Emilio Izaguirre in the club's strip which carries the logo of Magners cider. Picture: Robert Perry

Academics from Newcastle University today released the findings of the first UK study of its kind on embedded alcohol marketing in football at the British Science Festival.

Six matches were studied, with footage from the pre-game build-up all the way through to post-match analysis considered, with researchers logging every time an alcohol logo or name appeared on screen.

They found there was on average two visual references to alcohol per minute in the more than 18 hours of footage studied. Embedded marketing included pitch-side hoardings, visual graphics flashing up before the score-line or on players’ shirts.

The alcohol industry spends £600 million per year on embedded marketing in the UK, three times as much as on traditional adverts.

Dr Jean Adams, senior public health lecturer at Newcastle University, said: “I think self-regulation probably has reached its limit. I think that [a ban] certainly should be considered.”