Professional football players as role models in smoking prevention

Abstract

AIM: High-profile athletes are often promoted as role models, being portrayed as providing positive messages such as good health attitudes, which are assumed to be related to their success. As the logic behind using high-profile athletes as role models is also the argument for linking sports performance to not smoking, the objective of the present study was to compare publicly smoking players and nonsmoking players with regard to their football performances during the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.