A Sporting Chance

With impending relaxation of the licensing laws, it is vital that the drinks industry is seen to be behaving itself.  Sports sponsorship is under close scrutiny, says Jon Rees

ANYONE who has tried to get a celebratory drink at Twickenham rugby ground after the game will not need telling that rugby is trying to get rid of its alcoholic image.

Ever since the Seventies, when the legendary Crash-ball Kent celebrated an England triumph over the French by downing in one the trophy-sized bottle of Brut aftershave provided by the tournament’s then sponsors, Fabergé, you knew where you were with rugby.

Played by hard-drinking, flat-nosed, cauliflower-eared real men with beer guts the size of a family saloon, they trundled slowly from one end of the pitch to the other taking a breather every 20 yards.  

And after the game everyone involved, team and spectators alike, drank until they were sick while the winning captain had a programme stuffed up his bottom. Oh, it was a man’s game, alright.

Not any more. For a start, you can’t get a drink after the match at Twickenham, unless you’re in a corporate box, for love nor money. Odd, really, since I don’t recall there ever having been any crowd trouble at the ground, since, well, ever, in fact.

The game is totally different in other ways, too, of course, not least because it seems to be played three times faster than in the good old days by players who are obviously super-humanly fit compared to their predecessors.   They really are the most extraordinary athletes, at the top level, at least.

So, I suppose it should be no surprise that some in rugby are trying to disassociate themselves from the more alcoholic aspects of the sport. The Portman Group, the self-regulatory body of the drinks industry, is aiming to help rugby shed its reputation as a drinking-man’s sport. 

The group has advertised around the grounds of Tetley’s Super League matches in the UK with the aim of promoting a more sensible approach to drinking. It has even gone so far as to sponsor a rugby team itself, the London Skolars in the League’s second division.

The aim of the campaign, under the clever slogan "If you do do drink, don’t do drunk," is not to make the sport teetotal, sensibly enough, but to encourage a sensible approach to drinking and also to emphasise that athletes who drink to excess will harm their performance.

The move is the latest response to the government’s national harm-reduction strategy which is aimed at reducing the damage caused by alcohol, whether through drink-fuelled violence, or illness.

The Portman Group’s move is a smart one because, if and when 24-hour opening finally does arrive in this country, critics of the policy will be looking to the drinks industry to demonstrate that it can effectively encourage restraint, just as it can clearly fuel consumption.

And you thought all that drinks advertising was just about helping consumers choose between brands, while doing nothing to increase overall consumption, much as tobacco advertisers have always claimed. (Now there’s an example of an industry that really didn’t make the effort to meet the government half-way and saw its right to advertise taken away as a consequence.)  You might be right, but there are now moves in markets very close to our own which suggest that this is not a view the authorities are likely to agree with.

Take Ireland, for instance. There, the minister of state with responsibility for community affairs and the national drug strategy, Noel Ahern, has called for the introduction of a special levy on alcohol sales to attempt to tackle alcohol abuse.

The money from the proposed levy should be ring-fenced and targeted at alcohol advisory campaigns.  He has also suggested that parents of teenagers admitted to hospital after binge-drinking should be made to pay the full cost of their child’s treatment.  This, he believes, would bring home the full reality of the cost and effects of excessive drinking.

The most interesting view expressed by the minister, though, is that there is a mood for tougher action in the country to tackle under-age drinking and also to adopt a more draconian approach to advertising the dangers of alcohol.

The feeling is that the softly-softly campaigns of the past, such as the "Less is more" campaign, similar to that pursued by the Portman Group, were simply not working on their own.  A levy on alcohol sales could be used to fund sporting and other facilities in order to provide alternatives to going to the pub, said the minister.

He was speaking at a conference set up to discuss alcohol and drug abuse, called "Getting a Grip." Other speakers said that the drinks industry had taken over special occasions in Ireland.

"Hard-headed business-men do not spend €60m a year on useless advertising," said Dr Mick Loftus, a well-known commentator on the problems of alcohol abuse.  He also said there is evidence that the popular approach to tackling alcohol problems is often not the most effective, a view that is shared by the head of an addiction treatment centre, Con Cremin.   He argued that regulation and enforcement are more effective than education and prevention programmes. 

Other speakers lambasted the liberal policies being pursued by other European Union countries for encouraging alcohol abuse in Ireland.  Ireland presently tops the EU league in alcohol expenditure per person and both the government and the liquor industries are concerned enough to have a number of committees looking at the phenomenon.  The government has already promised to introduce statutory regulations requiring young people (under the age of 23) to carry identity cards when buying alcohol. 

The press in Ireland is calling for a "radical response," including an end to drinks companies sponsoring sporting events and an end to advertising that glamorises alcohol.  So far, it’s all a long way from the situation in the UK, but as the rules on selling drink relax in this country we can expect to see more pressure than ever to make sure that the drinks industry behaves itself.

The industry had better hope that "If you do do drink, don’t do drunk" works.