Booze Banned On Kids' Strips

Booze adverts will be stripped off children's football tops after the Executive hammered out a deal with the drinks industry.

It will mean replica jerseys for top clubs like Celtic, Rangers and Hibs will come without sponsors' logos.

Children's kits for other sports will also be affected. Junior Scotland rugby shirts, for example, will be sold without the whisky firm Famous Grouse logo.

Drinks industry body The Portman Group is to include the ban on advertising on kids' shirts in its new code of conduct.

The code will be signed by all the big drinks manufacturers, including Coors - the makers of Carling, who sponsor the Old Firm - and the Scottish Whisky Association, who represent brands including The Famous Grouse and Hibs sponsor Whyte and Mackay.

The Portman Group said: "This is in our new code of conduct which we expect to ratify soon."

The move to take the logos off kids' strips comes as leading experts call for a total ban on the advertising of all alcohol, including sports sponsorship.

Last week government figures revealed that twice as many Scots die from alcohol related illnesses than people in the rest of the UK.

Figures show there were 2372 alcohol related deaths in Scotland in 2005, an increase of 72 per cent in a decade.

Those figures include 400 children under 15 who were treated for alcohol-related illnesses.

Earlier this month we revealed children as young as 10 were being classified as "alcoholics" by doctors.

An Executive source said: "We have had discussions with the drinks industry and they have agreed that removing drinks logos from children's sports shirt is a sensible thing to do. It is going to happen.

"These products are not aimed at children so there is no need for their logos to be on children's shirts."

Professor Ian Glimmer, President of the Royal College of Physicians said: "It's not right that there are children going around with alcohol sponsorship over their football shirts."

The Scottish Executive has no plans to impose a ban on drinks advertising but ministers has a agreed a voluntary arrangement with drinks companies.

A source said last night: "The way forward on this is to keep the drinks companies on side and persuade them to take these steps.

"That is the only way these measures will ever work."

SNP Shadow Health Minister Shona Robison MSP said: "The SNP has called for alcohol advertising on children's sports wear to be stopped, so we welcome any moves to do this.

"It is illegal for under-18s to purchase alcohol, so advertising alcoholic products to children is completely inappropriate."

Health minister Andy Kerr said: "We are in discussions with the drinks industry about the marketing of alcohol."

The Sunday Mail