Alcohol and sport in this country seem to go together like Batman and Robin, cheese and pickle, or any other inseparable pairing you can think of. Alcohol sales and alcohol advertising help pay the bills at clubs and stadiums. Pints and prosecco lubricate the celebrations and commiserations – all the way from the cheap seats to the hospitality suites, from the village green to the Principality Stadium.
People often think of alcohol as a great includer, a social leveller. “Come and join us for a drink”, we say, as we seek to build friendships and professional partnerships. But what about the people that alcohol excludes? There are all sorts of reasons that someone might avoid alcohol – personal, medical cultural, or simple preference. And one significant group of people in the UK who tend to be non-drinkers are British Asians, who make up nearly 10% of the population of England and Wales. They’re a diverse group and they’re not universally teetotal, but they are often attached (at least culturally) to faith traditions – Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism – in which alcohol use is not the norm. So, what happens when people from these communities take part in the UK’s famously boozy world of sport?
The evidence suggests that the experience is not always positive. The 2022 Changing the Boundaries report on Scottish cricket found “persistent use of alcohol as part of post-match and social evenings, with a lack of consideration for different religious practices and beliefs”, with Asian players facing a wall of indifference when trying to explain to white teammates why they didn’t drink: “It still doesn’t get through to them”.
There’s quite a bit of evidence that the findings of Changing the Boundaries are not exceptional; but we’d like to find out more – to understand whether the drinking culture in sport is restricting the opportunities for British Asians, and what kinds of changes could make things more inclusive. To be clear, we’re not suggesting that all sports clubs need to shutter up the bar for good.
