Global Resolution Urges FIFA to Eliminate Alcohol Promotion in World Cup Events

Influential medical organizations and grassroots groups from around the world called on FIFA, the governing body for the World Cup, to get rid of alcohol promotion at World Cup events and on match broadcasts. More than 260 diverse health, youth, sports, and religious groups from 43 nations endorsed a global resolution urging World Cup organizers to stop undermining the positive values of sport by putting beer ads in front of so many young soccer fans worldwide.

Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewer and producer of Budweiser, is one of 15 official partners of the 2006 FIFA World Cup and has prominent visibility at World Cup venues. It sponsors the Man of the Match award for each game, sells its beer at matches, and advertises extensively on broadcasts of World Cup matches. According to Anheuser-Busch executives, its sports marketing activities are intended to make their beer "part of the fabric of the game."

"It's time to break the tie between alcohol marketing and high-profile sporting events," said George A. Hacker, Director of Alcohol Policies at the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and a member of the board of directors of the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA). CSPI organized the resolution effort. "FIFA is now on notice that there is widespread opposition to Budweiser's hijacking the values of sports to promote drinking to hundreds of millions of fans, including young children, around the world."

According to FIFA, in 2002 a cumulative audience exceeding 28.8 billion viewers watched more than 41,100 hours of dedicated World Cup television programming over the 25 match days of the event-–and 1.1 billion people watched the final match on television.

The resolution calls on FIFA to examine the role of marketing alcoholic beverages in the World Cup for "consistency with the values of sport, health, and fair play represented by international sports competition." It is available in several languages including Spanish, German, Portugese, Italian, and Thai.

Four percent of the burden of disease and 3.2 percent of all deaths globally are attributed to alcohol, and alcohol is the foremost risk to health in low-mortality countries and the third in developed countries, according to The World Health Report 2002. The 58th World Health Assembly resolved that harmful drinking is among the leading underlying causes of disease, injury, domestic violence against women and children, disability, social problems and premature deaths; is associated with mental ill-health; has a serious impact on human welfare affecting individuals, families, communities and society as a whole; and contributes to health inequities.

"Advertising alcoholic beverages at the World Cup, perhaps the premier global family event, is totally unacceptable," said J. Edward Hill, M.D., American Medical Association Immediate Past President. "We know exposure to television advertising for alcoholic beverages increases the likelihood that children will drink and consume alcohol more heavily. Eliminating all alcohol advertising and marketing at all future World Cup tournaments would demonstrate a commitment to promoting the health of youth and sports fans worldwide."

The 264 signers of the resolution represent a diverse array of health, youth, sports, drug control, and religious organizations worldwide – ranging from such groups as the World Medical Association, the National Federation of Youth Organizations in Bangladesh, the National Youth Council of Ireland, and the National Drug Abuse Control Council in Belize to the American Medical Association, the Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine in Ankara Turkey, and the Qatar National Anti-Doping Committee of the Qatar National Olympic Committee. Thailand contributed 86 organizational endorsers, in an effort spearheaded by Stopdrink.com, a project of the ThaiHealth Promotion Foundation.

The resolution represents an extension of CSPI's on-going Campaign for Alcohol-Free Sports TV, an effort within the United States to reduce youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television sports. As part of that Campaign, 24 percent of the universities in the National Collegiate Athletic Association have pledged to support an end to all alcohol advertising on college sports broadcasts in the U.S.

"FIFA touts its responsibility to promote health and points to its elimination in 1986 of tobacco advertising in all its tournaments," said Hacker. "If FIFA had a genuine concern about promoting health, particularly among the hundreds of millions of its youngest fans, it would give the boot, as soon as possible, to alcohol sponsorship, signage and advertising." In addition to FIFA, the resolution will be sent to the World Health Organization, and to health and sports ministers around the world. The World Health Organization is currently examining world-wide alcohol issues in preparation for a report to the Sixtieth World Health Assembly in May of 2007.