Australian Sports Criticised Over "Unhealthy" Sponsors

The biggest and most influential sporting groups in Australia are being criticised for signing "unhealthy" and high-profile sponsorship deals with beer and liquor companies, gambling agencies and fast-food chains.

A study by the University of Sydney's School of Public Health reveals nearly three-quarters of national and state government-funded sporting bodies are sponsored by companies promoting "harmful" products.

In a sports-mad country, that's not the best of news. Companies promoting unhealthy food and drink were the most prevalent, sponsoring nearly 50 percent of Australia's main sporting groups, followed by alcohol and gambling companies.

"Our research revealed a pervasive level of unhealthy sponsorship across our sporting codes," study researcher Rona Macniven said. "Associating these harmful products with positive aspects of sport normalizes associated activities."

The findings of the study were released a day after A-League football's Western Sydney Wanderers were criticized over a sponsorship deal with a fast food company which will see a meal named after the club served in dozens of locations in the western Sydney region.

The "Wanderers Meal" will include chicken nuggets, a large hamburger, large french fries and a large sugary drink. Food experts said the meal accounts for 70 to 75 percent of an average person's recommended daily calorie intake, and twice the amount of salt.

The critics said a 10-year-old child would have to play football or another similarly active sport for 10 hours to burn off the calories from that meal.

Despite an international reputation for its sporting success and outdoor lifestyle, Australia has experienced a surge in the rate of obesity.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that three in five adults in Australia are overweight or obese, and the overall number of obese or overweight people has increased by 5 percent since 1995. The institute said one in four Australian children were overweight or obese.

Macniven said the University of Sydney-funded study into sports sponsorship used a set of criteria developed by 12 health experts from government and non-government organizations to determine what constituted an unhealthy food or drink.

"It included representatives from the cancer council and heart foundation who were looking at the main nutritional content of the foods that were prominently produced by the company," Macniven said in a telephone interview Thursday with The Associated Press. "In some cases, the companies involved did produce healthy mineral water, but their main product streams were unhealthy."

Macniven said there were 14 mainstream Australian sports groups which had no unhealthy sponsorship tie-ins, including cycling, swimming and triathlon.

Cricket Australia, which features a large beer company logo on the shirts of its limited-overs international team, was considered by the study to be the worst offender.

A check of major Australian sports websites backs up the study. Cricket Australia's website has a prominent beer company logo as one of its "platinum" sponsors, while smaller logos of companies representing a gambling agency, fast-food fried chicken and sugary drinks also appear.

The fast-food fried chicken company is the major naming-rights sponsor for the domestic Twenty20 cricket league.

Cricket Australia said in an emailed statement to the AP that its commercial sponsors "provide critical financial support for the game at all levels, from the grassroots to elite competition."

It defended its association with an alcohol sponsors by saying it has a responsible drinking campaign called "Know When to Declare."

"Our research shows that it is better to engage with the reality that most fans enjoy a responsible drink than it is to turn them off with a prohibition message that they don't believe," CA said in its statement. "We believe that this is a pragmatic approach."

It also said its fast-food sponsor helped spread the game to a wider range of the Australian public, and said Cricket Australia has a range of programs in place to encourage children "to get off the couch and be active, from school education resources through to the development of our MILO in2CRICKET participation program."

The National Rugby League has logos from companies which manufacture beer, bourbon, soft drinks and the fast-food fried chicken company on its website, and the Australian Football League has beer and a soft drink company featured in its online marketing.

The A-League is sponsored by a car company and has none of the so-called "unhealthy" sponsors on its website. But that was counteracted when one of its 10 teams aligned itself with the fast-food burger chain that is packaging the "Wanderers Meal."

"I despair at the way some sports seem willing to sell themselves to anyone, and to promote unhealthy messages, regardless of the consequences," Mike Daube, professor of health policy at the Curtin University in Perth, Australia, told Fairfax Media. "This is rampant promotion for the obesity epidemic."

Macniven sounded exasperated at the thought of the Wanderers Meal.

"Sports is supposed to be linked with health, but here we have unhealthy options under the guise of health," she told the AP. "Children, of course, are heavily influenced by this kind of material in a negative way."