Another Ban Failed: Germany No ban law at World Cup

World Cup organizers say butt out

May 17, 2006

BERLIN (AP) – Though smoking is a national pastime in Germany, World Cup organizers are hoping a simple plea to stop will be enough to minimize tobacco use at stadiums.

Organizers said Wednesday that there will be no outright ban on smoking at the World Cup stadiums. However, public address announcements, posters and other notices will provide a “mantra-like repetition” of the phrase “no smoking please” in the hope someone will listen.

“FIFA and the organizing committee are hoping the appeal will help reduce smoking to the minimum at the festival of world football in an effort to protect non-smokers,” the organizers said in a statement.

FIFA urged to restore smoking ban for World Cup

May 29, 2006
Laura MacInnis

GENEVA, – Health advocacy groups on Monday urged FIFA to ban smoking at next month’s World Cup in Germany after soccer’s governing body dropped a smoke-free rule adopted in 2002.

Instead of barring smoking at stadiums, expected to draw about three million people during the month-long tournament starting June 9, FIFA said it would ask fans voluntarily to refrain.

“An outright ban will not apply,” FIFA said in a statement describing a campaign of posters, audio and video announcements and “and mantra-like repetition of the key phrase ‘No Smoking Please'” to discourage spectators from lighting up.

Sinead Jones, director of the International U nion Against Cancer’s global smoke free partnership, said the voluntary policy meant smoking would be freely permitted throughout the stadiums.

“They are saying to fans ‘don’t smoke’, but on the other hand there will be absolutely no enforcement there,” said Jones, whose organisation is appealing for the German tournament to be smoke-free like the last World Cup in Japan and South Korea.

Noting that FIFA is selling branded lighters and ashtrays during the tournament, she said the campaign sent fans a mixed message about tobacco and sports.

“The whole thing is really inconsistent. It seems like a backward step,” Jones said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) signed a deal with FIFA four years ago to make the 2002 World Cup venues tobacco-free, as are the Olympic Games, in a deal it hoped would set a precedent for future tournaments.

TOBACCO TAXES

But FIFA declined to renew the agreement for the 2006 event after discussions with the German government and the local organising committee.

Phone calls seeking comment from FIFA and the organising committee in Frankfurt were not immediately returned.

Germany, a heavy smoking country with high state revenues from tobacco taxes, was amongst a handful of rich states in the 192-member WHO to oppose a planned global anti-smoking treaty.

But the pact, with its call for a crackdown on advertising, was eventually agreed in 2003.

With less than two weeks until kick-off, the World Health Professions Alliance, which represents more than 20 million health care workers, said it was critical that the tournament separate its image from the tobacco industry.

Noting that billions of people are expected to watch the televised matches around the world, it said a clear smoke-free message at the World Cup could help save millions of lives.

“We believe that only an outright smoking ban can send out a clear signal against tobacco use,” the group said in a letter to the FIFA organising committee.

Activists Urge FIFA to Bring Back Smoking Ban

31.05.2006

As the world marks World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday, anti-smoking activists again criticized a decision to allow smoking during World Cup games in Germany and called for stricter controls.

A special pre-show program awaits soccer fans who attend games during the upcoming World Cup in Germany: Video screens and public announcement systems in stadiums will repeat a simple message in a mantra-like fashion: “No smoking, please.”

But that’s not going to prevent people from lighting up as FIFA, the world’s soccer body, has lifted a smoking ban put in place during the 2002 Cup in South Korea and Japan. According to news reports, the decision to allow smoking in stadiums was made after consultations with the German government and the event’s German organization committee.

Officials for the World Health Organization (WHO), who had worked with FIFA to introduce the smoking ban in the first place, said the no smoking announcements were unlikely to have the desired effect.

“We know that voluntary tobacco-control agreements don’t work,” Marta Seoane, the spokeswoman for the WHO’s anti-smoking campaign, told German public broadcaster SWR. “Smoking and tobacco bans have to be introduced to reduce consumption. The point is to protect public health — the health of viewers in the stadiums and that of people — adults and children — who follow the games on television.”

“Completely incomprehensible” decision

Bildunterschrift: Gro?ansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Smoking is banned in German train stations, but not restaurants.

The move to allow smoking in stadiums has outraged anti-smoking activists, who have long criticized the German government’s reluctance to back international initiatives to curb tobacco use, such as a global anti-smoking treaty proposed by the WHO and which took effect in 2003. EU officials have also criticized Germany for failing to do more to limit smoking.

“It’s completely incomprehensible why we don’t manage” to keep the tournament smoke-free, said Dagmar Schipanski, president of German Cancer Aid, adding that smoking will be banned again during the 2010 Cup in South Africa.

Others also accused FIFA of sending a mixed message to fans by selling branded lighters and ashtrays.

“The whole thing is really inconsistent,” Sinead Jones, the director of the International U nion Against Cancer’s global smoke free partnership, told Reuters news service. “They are saying to fans: ‘Don’t smoke,’ but on the other hand there will be absolutely no enforcement there.”

Germany still lags behind

Bildunterschrift: Gro?ansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: German cigarette machines will only accept credit cards starting in 2007 to prevent teens from buying

In Germany, anti-smoking groups meanwhile used World No Tobacco Day to renew calls for more stringent controls. While a majority of Germans support smoking bans in restaurants and bars, so far, only a voluntary agreement to designate 50 percent of seats in 90 percent of restaurants as smoke-free by 2008 exists.

“Creating smoking and non-smoking areas only appear to solve the problem,” said J?rg-Dietrich Hoppe, the president of the German Medical Association.

According to Germany’s Federal Center for Health Education, about 140,000 people in Germany die each year as a result of smoking. The German Cancer Research Center says that 3,000 people die each year from passive smoking.

June 22, 2006

Global Resolution Urges FIFA to Eliminate Alcohol Promotion in World Cup Events Influential medical organizations and grassroots groups from around the world today 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.

Spokespersons from around the world urged FIFA to eliminate alcohol promotion from the World Cup:

Dr. Franklin Alcaraz Del C. of Centro Latinoamerico de Investigaci?n Cientifica (CELIN), a research organization in Bolivia: “CELIN supports sports activities as alternatives to drug consumption, therefore CELIN thinks that the World Cup with no alcohol, should be the best example to follow.” Valerio Leonardo, executive director of AMOPROC, an alcohol-prevention group in Mozambique: “Alcohol-related accidents, crimes, and abuse of women and children fill our police stations and hospital clinics. Too often, what little money that’s available for bread goes for alcohol instead, leading to impoverishment, dependency, even HIV/AIDS. Beer promotion in the World Cup violates our principles of peace and human rights.”

Luciana Michelin, coordinator of Gruppi di Solidarieta in Italy: “Children are massively over-exposed to advertising and promotion for alcoholic beverages. Sensible values and a profound respect for young people’s futures dictate that the world’s most popular sporting event should end its alcohol sponsorship.”

Ahmadou Kane, coordinator of Association des Jeunes pour le Developpement AJD/PASTEEF in Senegal: “We are a youth association that promotes public health and education, which makes this campaign of the highest concern to us; all the more so because young people are the target of this mass-advertising of alcohol.”

“ANPA is proud that France blocked beer advertising in the World Cup four years ago, because French law prohibits the advertising of alcoholic beverages,” said Claude Riviere, European Affairs Officer of the Association Nationale de Prev?ntion en Alcoologie et Addictologie. “The law was upheld by the European Court of Justice, which ratified the restriction on trade as a valid exercise of national authority to protect public health from advertising intended to increase alcohol consumption.”

In India, Dr. S. Arul Rhaj, Vice President of the Commonwealth Medical Association: “In a developing country health is the foundation upon which the wealth of the nation is built and strengthened. Alcohol is harmful to you, your family, and society. It damages your health, wealth, mind, and peace.” Dr. Hariharan of the Indian Alcohol Policy Alliance: “Alcohol consumption in the west has reached a very high level and it would be troublesome if countries like India and China follow on that path. The drinks industry sees both countries as emerging and promising markets for expansion.”

Derek Rutherford, Chairman of the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA): “The most insidious form of alcohol advertising is sports sponsorship. It reveals industry self-regulation of advertising as a complete sham. The industry is aware that sports is a cheap method for them to reach the young in all parts of the globe in order to recruit new drinkers. The association of alcohol with sport is a mismatch.”

Dr. Joe Barry, former president of the Irish Medical Organization: “The World Cup is saturated with advertising and promotion for alcohol brands. It is regrettable that those massive promotional budgets are welcomed by FIFA and given free rein by the Irish Government when this country has such publicly acknowledged problems with alcohol consumption.”

“Through television, on their sporting heroes, and on their own playing fields, young people in New Zealand are bombarded with alcohol marketing messages that reinforce our binge drinking culture,” said Ross Bell, Executive Director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation. “If we are to get serious about changing that culture, then we must break the unhealthy relationship between alcohol and sports.”

Hermann Meyer, publisher of alkoholpolitik.ch: “Switzerland and Austria will host the European football championship in two years. The Global Resolution gives us a strong platform to oppose alcohol sponsorship and service at those games. Eliminating alcohol from sports takes on special importance in Switzerland, where sports, alcohol, and young people are too frequently and dangerously linked.”

Dr. Ronaldo Laranjeira, a professor of psychiatry and director of the Brazilian Alcohol Advocacy Project (ACCA): “Brazil is a country where millions of young people look to our football players as heroes and role-models. Our alcohol policies are still in an embryonic stage, and an alcoholic beverage can cost less than a pint of milk. Beer adverts can be watched anytime day or night. It is a great privilege to be part of this movement.”

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.
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