Health professionals across the globe are campaigning for a smokefree World Cup 2006 in Germany. The World Health Professions Alliance (WHPA) joins more than 170 organisations and alliances worldwide to support the UICC Global Smokefree Partnership's countdown campaign for a smokefree World Cup.

On behalf of the physicians, nurses, dentists and pharmacists of the world, the WHPA calls in an open letter to Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) for a reinstatement of a memorandum of cooperation signed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and FIFA prior to the 2002 World Cup.

In the memorandum, WHO and FIFA agreed “that tobacco and sports do not mix and that tobacco in any form must be removed from all football events associated with FIFA.”

It claims that as the World Cup will be televised internationally to billions of people, of all ages and races, it is important that the image promoted by FIFA is one that encompasses a healthy competitive spirit, not to be overshadowed by the unhealthy, life-threatening habit of smoking.

The WHPA supports the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the world's first public health treaty which contains a host of measures designed to reduce the devastating health and economic impact of tobacco.

For more information visit www.globalsmokefreepartnership.org or www.whpa.org.