Analysis of Committee Recommendations on Alcohol and Sport


Beer SalesHow to introduce responsible sales and marketing of alcohol?
Last week the Oireachtas Committee investigating a proposed ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport  ruled against the merit of a ban, suggesting a number of alternative measures in its place.
Day by day we are considering each of those recommendations, the basis on which it is made, how it might be put into practice and how it might have been put in place elsewhere around the world.
Today: A Code should be introduced to make it mandatory for all brand owners and rights-holders to provide responsible training in selling, advertising and marketing and to promote responsible drinking at all sponsored events.

The idea that staff selling alcohol will at the very least be trained in a number of key areas is already established and generally practised.
Going back again to the research undertaken by the University of Minnesota, all of the 66 sporting venues surveyed for their 2010 report did undertake training of staff and management.
Over 90% covered each of what were considered to be four key areas of checking age, refusing service to underage and to intoxicated customers and responsible serving policies of limiting the amount sold to one customer.
To outline a standard code would be straightforward and may indeed already be in place.
Codes of practice already exist with regard to the limits on promotion of alcohol within stadia.  these are strictly adhered too between brands, stadium operators and broadcast partners though none would likely resist if the codes were placed on a statutory footing.
The DrinkAware message, which is the current industry wide responsible drinking mechanic is already widely promoted alongside any promotion of alcohol and this has become part and parcel of how any alcohol company would approach a highly public event like a sports contest.
The British Retail Consortium supplies a simple guide to retailers of alcohol outlining their role and responsibilities as licence holders and the legal requirements on staff.
It is unlikely that any major venue or certainly any brand would be operating wildly outside of these processes but if a standardised code needs to be put on a statutory footing that would be not only accepted but likely welcomed by all parties as a way of maintaining higher standards in the consumption of alcohol on a sporting premises.
Compliance would be more patchy at club level but if made a part of the license could be policed and generally improved over an acceptable period of time.
Catch up with the rest of this series
Day One: Sponsorship by the Alcohol Drinks Industry should remain in place until such time as it can be replaced by other identifiable streams of comparable funding.
Day Two: A Code of Practice for the consumption of alcohol within stadia should be drawn- up by all sporting organisations.
Day Three: A fixed percentage of all sponsorship received by each and every organisation (sporting, cultural, arts, music etc.) from the alcohol drinks industry, should be ring-fenced and paid into a central fund to be administered by an appropriate body. That fund should be used exclusively for Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Programmes.
Day Four: Sponsorship of sports and sporting events should be treated in the same way as sponsorship of the arts, music and other festivals.
Today: A Code should be introduced to make it mandatory for all brand owners and rights-holders to provide responsible training in selling, advertising and marketing and to promote responsible drinking at all sponsored events.
Thursday: All sporting organisations should be encouraged to support programmes which contribute to social inclusion in order to reduce the abuse of alcohol, particularly among young people.
Friday: A prohibition on sponsorship by the alcohol industry should only be considered if it is done on a pan-European basis in order to ensure that Irish sports and sporting organisations are not operating at a disadvantage relative to their international competitors.
The Committee report can be downloaded here
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