Soccer Smoking & Prevention

Prevent Smoking Among Soccer Players

 

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Soccer and Smoking Young soccer fans want to be just like the athletes they admire most, and that's at the heart of the SmokeFree Soccer program, launched in 1996 by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the CDC, and the National Cancer Institute. Members of the US women's national soccer team act as role models for kids (especially girls) as they travel around the country speak­ing to schools, conventions, and the media about the benefits of being physically active and not smoking. Hundreds of thousands of motivational posters featuring these soccer stars have been distributed nationwide through soccer clubs, public health

Young soccer players in Virginia get the message loud and clear from visiting members of the US women's national soccer team: Tobacco and sports don't mix! Photo courtesy of the Virginia Department of Health. The Tobacco-Free Sports Playbook

FIFA Fair Play Award winner Julie Foudy works with children with disabilities. Through the FIFA Fair Play program, the association supports SmokeFree Soccer and helps players with physical and mental disabilities to develop their skills as enthusiastic players. Photo courtesy of UNIROYAL. departments, and community organiza­tions. Ten states currently receive CDC funding, enabling them to expand their SmokeFree Soccer and others sports programs by establishing partnerships with community-based organizations and public health groups. The SmokeFree Soccer program recently went global when the CDC teamed up with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to promote tobac-co-free messages worldwide, to girls as well as boys. Women and men soccer stars from the United States, Australia, Brazil, China, and Canada have stepped forward to show their support for the program and appear in posters for kids. Besides posters, many other free products have been developed by the program, including a new SmokeFree Soccer logo, a PBS teen documentary called Soccer. Kickin' Butts, and the SmokeFree Soccer Coach's Kit, which features creative and fun drills that coaches can use to boost young players' soccer skills and teach them about the harm that smok­ing can have on their bodies and their performance. For more information about these products, visit SmokeFree Soccer's Internet site at www.cdc.gov/tobacco. The tobacco-free movement also is scoring points in South Africa, where a smoke-free soccer initiative has been launched by the South African Football Association (SAFA) and WHO. In January 2001, after the government of South Africa banned cigarette advertis­ing in sports, SAFA waved goodbye to 10 million rand (about $1.25 million) in tobacco sponsorship revenues for the Rothmans Cup, the country's leading soccer club competition. SAFA is now looking for new sponsors and is using the sport as a platform to promote a healthy lifestyle among its players and the public. The South African Ministry of Health now has a mission to make all sports in the country tobacco-free. The country will be host to the 2003 Cricket World Cup. Building on this momentum, the CDC and WHO worked for a tobacco-free 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan. The kick-off for the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Seoul will fall on World No Tobacco Day, May 31, 2002. WHO has declared the theme for World No Tobacco Day to be "Tobacco-Free Sports."

 

 

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