Football Sponsorship Under Attack Again

In 2018, independent vape company Totally Wicked became the sponsor for Blackburn Rovers’ training kit. Shortly, the football club ended its association with Recoverite Compression and Totally Wicked stepped into the breach.

Blackburn Rovers were delighted: “The club is delighted to enhance its close relationship with training wear partner Totally Wicked. The thriving local business, which was founded in Blackburn, became Rovers’ official training kit sponsor in September 2018 and the successful partnership is now in its fourth successive season."

Totally Wicked said: "Our headquarters are located within a short walking distance of Ewood Park and many of our team across the business, including our leadership team, are passionate supporters of our hometown club. It was therefore a proud moment when we became club sponsors in 2018 and hopefully we will continue this affiliation and support for many years beyond.”

This was far from the first time that a responsible vape company had linked itself with a football club, but this time there were murmurs. The Independent British Vape Trade Association responded: “In the [ITV News at 10 article], a medical professional expressed the opinion that the logo of a vaping business should not be associated with the sports team which the business has been sponsoring for a number of years now and was attractive to children.

“The IBVTA member featured has become one of the most popular brands in the UK by selling to adult smokers and ex-smokers for almost 14 years, with strict age verification policies in place both online and in their stores. The average age of their customer is just over 43, intimating that neither their products nor brands are particularly attractive to young adults, let alone children and dismisses the claim that adults are not attracted by a bit of ‘fun’ imagery.”

Prior to the prorogation of Parliament for the general election, idiotic attacks on football sponsorship were repeated during discussion of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. Ex-Health Minister Andrea Leadsom promised that she was going to add a restriction on vape adverts and sponsorships featuring on sports shirts as part of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill during the committee stage. Her eagerness to implement this nonsensical move was supported by the SNP’s Kirsten Oswald.

Kirsten Oswald is quoted as saying: "Having campaigned for almost two years now to raise awareness of the detrimental impact of vapes on young people and, in particular, ban vape branding in sports, I am very pleased that the UK government has now recognised the need for action on this issue. I look forward to seeing the proposals they have committed to putting forward on this.

“Given this legislation aims to make vaping less attractive to young people, it makes sense to take steps to limit children’s exposure to vapes - and that means ensuring their favourite football team or sports star cannot advertise vapes, as they cannot with cigarettes."

So, despite the Tobacco and Vapes Bill falling due to the general election, vapers can expect to see renewed attacks after July 5^th.

Photo Credit:

• Photo by Vikram TKV on Unsplash

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.