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Alcohol and sport make unhappy bedfellows and sports sponsorship by drinks companies should be banned, say a group of public health researchers.

In the latest issue of Addiction (), Kerry O’Brien at the University of Manchester, UK, and his colleagues claim that alcohol sponsorship tarnishes the image of sport and harms athletes’ health. They have previously found that such sponsorship – which often includes free drinks – is linked to alcohol problems in athletes.

Instead, O’Brien suggests that governments increase tax on booze and use the proceeds to generate a general sports fund.

The alcohol industry has dismissed his team’s research, O’Brien says. The onus should be on the industry to show its sponsorship does not harm health, he adds.