By Mark Baber
Merthyr Town, a non-league Welsh club that plays in the English Southern League, has sparked controversy by signing a naming rights deal with electronic cigarettes company Cigg-e for their stadium for the next three years.
Merthyr Town’s Penydarren Park ground will be known as the Cigg-e Stadium in an important step for the club which was taken over by fans after being liquidated three years ago.
The move follows both the E-Lites e-cigarettes brand being unveiled as an official partner of English Championship side Derby County and Birmingham City’s shirt sponsorship deal with Nicolites.
Brent Carter, Merthyr Town’s business development manager said: “For the football club itself it brings stability for next three years. We have got an academy with 180 kids here and it’s great for the community.”
Cigg-E founder Lee Woolls, who himself gave up the tobacco habit with the help of e-cigarettes, said his company, which already sponsors a rugby club in Wales, wanted to support local communities – and hoped to bring its overseas production to the south Wales valleys.
Electronic cigarettes are due to be licensed for medicinal purposes in the United Kingdom from 2016 but the Cymru Wales branch of the British Medical Association argue: “We need to restrict their marketing, sale and promotion so that it is only targeted at smokers as a way of cutting down and quitting and does not appeal to non-smokers, in particular children and young people.”
However, a limited scientific study published by BMC Public Health suggests that public health benefits of e-cigarettes may be substantial, saying that ‘… e-Cigarettes can substantially decrease cigarette consumption without causing significant side effects in smokers not intending to quit…’