Doping jokes backfire

A sports betting company has defended its decision to use the drug cheat Ben Johnson to promote its new Android app, insisting that there are no plans to pull the advertisement from the air despite strong criticism from the sports minister, Greg Hunt, other politicians and anti-doping authorities. The minute-and-a-half Sportsbet ad, which launched at the weekend, features the disgraced Canadian sprinter and a series of doping-related puns. The new mobile phone betting app, the ad claims, puts “the roid into Android”. The campaign, which aired during free-to-air sports telecasts at the weekend, drew criticism from the government, with Hunt saying the use of a “known drug cheat” such as Johnson to advertise the product is “utterly inappropriate”. Senator Nick Xenophon said: “It is just wrong on so many levels, glorifying a drug cheat, tying it in with gambling and promoting it to kids in a lighthearted way.” The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (Asada) lodged an official complaint over the ad on Monday. “This advert makes light of the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport and sends the completely wrong message that the use of drugs in sport is normal,” an Asada statement read. “This advertising campaign belittles the achievements of clean athletes and denigrates those who work to protect clean sport across the world.” Sportsbet remains unrepentant and a spokesperson said the company made no apologies for “injecting some humour into advertising”. “Sportsbet have no plans to pull the adverts from air – we've received overwhelmingly positive support from the public and they see it for what it is, a tongue-in-cheek joke,” the spokesperson said. Johnson, who was stripped of the 100m gold medal after testing positive for anabolic steroids at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, is introduced in the clip as someone who “really knows his stuff” about performance enhancement. Sportsbet said the advert had been approved and rated by Commercials Advice, and had been permitted to air at the same times as all their other product and retail advertisements. It added that it does not condone the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Xenophon, who on Monday lodged complaints with the Independent Gambling Authority and the Advertising Standards Authority over a possible breach of their standards, told Guardian Australia the company was in “total denial” about making light of the illegal use of drugs in sport. The ad's premise is that the new “juiced-up” app gives the average punter an “unfair” advantage over others, in much the same was as doping does for athletes. As well as Johnson, the ad features a muscular Chinese swimmer, an indefatigable US cyclist sporting a yellow jersey and an impossibly strong eastern European athlete, all of whom advocate the use of the new app, which delivers “lightning-fast results”.THE GUARDIAN

Doping jokes backfire

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-16

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Doping jokes backfire

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-16

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