The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2021 May;61(5):732-42

DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.21.11317-9

language: English

Alcohol, youth and sport: recommendation and good practice examples from the FYFA European project

Claudia GANDIN, Alice MATONE ✉, Silvia GHIRINI, Emanuele SCAFATO on behalf of FYFA Work Package 5 working team

National Observatory on Alcohol, National Center on Addiction and Doping, WHO Collaborating Center for Health Promotion and Research on Alcohol and Alcohol-Related Problems ITA-79, Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), Rome, Italy

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Focus on Youth Football and Alcohol (FYFA) is a European project (EC, 3^rd Health Program, HP-PJ-2016) involving research institutions from Belgium, Finland, Italy, Poland, Slovenia and the UK. The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), was the project leader of Work Package 5: “Review of national policies and practice in six Member States related to alcohol, young people, sport, marketing and football.” The aim of WP5 was to determine the status quo of the policies and practices to reduce heavy episodic drinking related to young people, alcohol and sport at national level. This work investigates knowledge, attitudes and perceptions of experts from sport settings and from the prevention area giving insights on the perceived obstacles and facilitators, whenever available, to promote strategies to reduce alcohol related harm in youth within sport contexts. The presented work describes laws, regulations and attitudes. Furthermore, the results help identifying areas requiring development, highlighting examples of good practices. It emerges that prevention of alcohol-related harm to youth is important within sport settings and should be a priority for all FYFA countries. Despite the presence of regulations, there is a low level of knowledge and enforcement at national level and in the sport contexts; and there is the need of cooperation across organizations to implement alcohol policies for youth within sport settings. More efforts and resources are needed to overcome the main obstacles for effective implementation of alcohol policies, such as regulations on advertising and sponsorship, and alcohol selling, serving and consumption for young players. It is necessary to implement information strategies, prevention initiatives, training programs and to support the dialogue between sporting and prevention settings.

KEY WORDS: Alcohols; Sports; Underage drinking; Binge drinking

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Publication History

Issue published online: May 11, 2021
Article first published online: February 2, 2021
Manuscript accepted: January 26, 2021
Manuscript revised: January 19, 2021
Manuscript received: June 4, 2020

Cite this article as

Gandin C, Matone A, Ghirini S, Scafato E; FYFA Work Package 5 working team. Alcohol, youth and sport: recommendation and good practice examples from the FYFA European project. J Sports Med Phys Fitness 2021;61:732-42. DOI: 10.23736/S0022-4707.21.11317-9

FYFA Work Package 5 working team

Krzysztof BRZÓZKA (Polish State Agency for Prevention of Alcohol-related Problems [PARPA], Warsaw, Poland); Eric CARLIN (Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems [SHAAP], Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK); Astrid DE SCHUTTER (Vereniging voor Alcohol en andere Drugproblemen vzw [VAD], Brussel, Belgium); Lukas GALKUS (International Youth Health Organization [YHO], Ljubljana, Slovenia); Claudia GANDIN (Istituto Superiore di Sanità [ISS], Rome, Italy); Silvia GHIRINI (Istituto Superiore di Sanità [ISS], Rome, Italy); Theodor HARATAU (Fundatia Romtens [Romtens], Bucharest, Romania); Špela JENKO (International Youth Health Organization [YHO], Ljubljana, Slovenia); Johan JONGBLOET (Vereniging voor Alcohol en andere Drugproblemen vzw [VAD], Brussel, Belgium); Aleksandra KACZMAREK (European Alcohol Policy Alliance [Eurocare], Brussels, Belgium); Alice MATONE (Istituto Superiore di Sanità [ISS], Rome, Italy); Mariusz MORAWSKI (Polish State Agency for Prevention of Alcohol-related Problems [PARPA], Warsaw, Poland); Briege NUGENT (Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems [SHAAP], Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK); Katarzyna OKULICZ (Polish State Agency for Prevention of Alcohol-related Problems [PARPA], Warsaw, Poland); Jan PELOZA (International Youth Health Organization [YHO], Ljubljana, Slovenia); Emanuele SCAFATO (Istituto Superiore di Sanità [ISS], Rome, Italy); Urša ŠETINA (International Youth Health Organization [YHO], Ljubljana, Slovenia); Mariann SKAR (European Alcohol Policy Alliance [Eurocare], Brussels, Belgium); Leena SIPINEN (Ehkäisevä päihdetyö [EHYT], Helsinki, Finland); Jolanta TERLIKOWSKA (Polish State Agency for Prevention of Alcohol-related Problems [PARPA], Warsaw, Poland); Sandra TRICAS-SAURAS (European Alcohol Policy Alliance [Eurocare], Brussels, Belgium); Andrej M. VUJKOVAC (International Youth Health Organization [YHO], Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Corresponding author e-mail

alice.matone@iss.it

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