Some Questions About The Premier League Snus “Epidemic”

Another week, another article about Premier League footballers using snus, this time from The Telegraph. Chief football writer Sam Wallace swerves the usual moralising we see on the issue and takes a different tack by attempting to look at the underlying cause of the “problem”.

The article is prompted by West Ham United’s Micheal Antonio’s thoughts about the matter on his latest BBC podcast. Antonio, as characteristically direct as he is on the field, suggests that snus use among footballers is down to one thing: pressure.

Wallace’s argument in the piece is that footballers live gilded lives, but something is “not right” if players are using snus. But I’m not sure that’s the only way to examine the issue.

Players have always smoked

Firstly, players have always smoked. The list is too long to get into, but Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole, David Ginola, Fabien Barthez, and Zinedine Zidane all famously smoked cigarettes during their careers. Indeed, the former Arsenal football manager, Arsene Wenger, had a reported 40-a-day habit until he developed a respiratory condition in 2016.

Conditioning is on a different level these days. Ironically, Wenger was associated with modernising the English game when he arrived at Arsenal in 1996, thanks to his heavy focus on nutrition and fitness. 

The pressure has always been there, but in the 90s, mental health wasn’t really on the radar. Famously, when Stan Collymore was suffering from issues because of pressure, his then-manager, John Gregory, dismissed the situation, saying, “Pressure is not being able to pay your bills.”

The residue of these attitudes remains. Many people think that footballers earn a lot of money, and therefore, they have no right to feel pressure. But what people seem to forget is that they are young men under incredible scrutiny to perform week-in, week-out in front of expectant fans. Clubs’ widespread use of sports psychologists reveals they have an acute understanding of the fragility of their players.

But why snus?

Another question that Wallace grapples with is why such highly conditioned athletes would use a “substance with all the disadvantages that has for elite sport.” But I think this argument is built on the false assumption that snus is harmful.

Clubs, in the words of Antonio, seem to tolerate snus. The big question is, why would they do that if it had a negative effect on performance? We are talking billions of dollars in assets competing in a sport with super fine margins. We are talking about people who treat their bodies like shrines. Is it credible to think that players compromise peak performance to use snus? And if they did, why would their teams tolerate it at the cost of success, prize money, and, ultimately, their jobs?

Something doesn’t add up.

Why do clubs tolerate snus?

Hibs FC manager Lee Johnson estimates that between 30 to 40% of players use snus. Footballers are among the most medically scrutinised athletes in the world. They undergo extensive and routine health monitoring during their careers, including physicals, cardiac and respiratory assessments, and all manner of laboratory tests. 

And yet, when we hear about the ill effects of snus, the stories are things like Gary Lineker having an adverse reaction to a pouch one night in a hotel room. All that monitoring of players, and we’re being spooked by one-off experiences? Again, something doesn’t add up.

Final thoughts

Players used to smoke. Now, some of them use snus or nicotine pouches. The pressure of the game is still there, so these highly conditioned athletes are choosing one of the most benign ways of accessing a legal drug that helps them deal with the strains of life in the spotlight. There is nothing particularly incongruous about this, in my opinion. 

If up to 40% of players have a dependence on snus and it results in a competitive disadvantage, management would not turn a blind eye to it. 

So, I think we could be thinking about this all wrong. Maybe the real question to ask is: what benefits do peak athletes get from nicotine, and are there other areas of our lives where this legal drug can help us?