The Australian Medical Association (AMA) wants governments to end sponsorship deals between high profile sports events and fast food companies.
In an academic letter published in the Australian Medical Journal, the AMA accuses Cricket Australia, the sport’s national governing body, of being “irresponsible” for signing a sponsorship deal with fast-food giant KFC.
AMA president, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, told ABC news that fast food and snack food companies are attaching themselves to sporting events in the same way the tobacco industry did decades ago and that the government should intervene.
"I think there's a role for Government to buy out the sponsorship," she said. "In Victoria we have VicHealth. In WA there is a group called Healthway. They were both created by those state governments to buy out tobacco advertising and the sponsorship and advertising of sport is a very targeted market. We could move away from that."
Cricket Australia (CA) spokesman Peter Young, told broadcaster that the deal, in which KFC has naming rights to various cricket tournaments, will stay in place.
"They hold what are known as the naming rights to the Twenty20 tournaments that we play at an interstate level and in Australia at an international level," he said. "What we're saying is 'enjoy your KFC, but also ensure you balance it with a nutritious diet'.
Young said, however, that despite KFC having the status of the official fast food restaurant of CA, it is not the same as CA endorsing the chain.
"KFC is endorsing us, I guess," he said. "The support that they provide us along with the support from our other sponsors keeps our game on the road. It keeps our game on the school ovals, at local parks and at an elite level it helps us keep the team in the field."
