The Mirror reveals top ten smoking football players

10. Socrates

The legendary Brazilian captain and World Cup winner got through two packets of cigarettes a day during his playing career and continued to smoke after he retired. He’s now a medical doctor.

Zinedine Zidane in action during football match game

9. Gazza and Teddy Sheringham

In the run up to Euro ’96 both Gazza and Teddy Sheringham were spotted with tabs on the go. We suspect the reason why they weren’t collared by the FA, or indeed the press, for this misdemeanour was because it occurred on the same night as the infamous ‘dentist’s chair’ incident.

8. Robert Prosinečki

Ex-Crotaian international Robert Prosinečki was famous in his homeland for being a heavy smoker. He was as well known for his ability to chug away on more than 40 ciggies a day as he was for his midfield prowess. When he was joined Portsmouth in 2001 word is that he cut down… to 20 a day. He lasted one season.

7. David Ginola

The French love a smoke – if it was an Olympic sport they’d take gold in Beijing – which is probably why ex-Spurs head-turner and shampoo hawker David Ginola enjoyed the odd Gitanes during his playing career. Who says smoking isn’t sexy?

6. Zinedine Zidane

Another Frenchie caught with a salmon between his lips was Zinedine Zidane who was snapped puffing away ahead of France’s 2006 World Cup semi-final against Portugal. The thing is Zizou fronted an anti-smoking campaign in 2002. D’oh!

5. Maradona

Maradona, one of the most prolific footballers in history, began to smoke after he retired from the game. He spent 10 days in intensive care in 2004 with breathing problems, which may or may not have been down to smoking. But probably was. Maradona recognised in 2005 that Wayne Rooney was a closely cut copy of himself, which may not have been a bad observation.

4. Johann Cruyff

Johann Cruyff was smoking 20 cigarettes a day, prior to heart surgery in 1991, at a time when he was coaching Barcelona. He was also often seen lighting up in the RFK locker room as he talked to reporters. Nowadays, the legendary Dutchman fronts a campaign by the Health Department of the Catalan autonomous government against smoking. And to think, it only took him a double heart bypass to see the error of his ways.

3. Stanley Matthews

Stanley Matthews was not a smoker himself, but in 1954 he nonetheless backed an advertisement for Craven A cheap cigarettes, who put his “smooth ball control” down to the “smoothness of Craven A”.

2. Fabien Barthez

Fabien Barthez was a high-profile smoker during his time in the Prem. After a game for Man United against Southampton in 2003, defeated manager Gordon Strachan was furious when he returned to his non-smoking office and found cigarettes stubbed out in an ashtray. It seemed that the injured Barthez had been in the room after being stretchered off in the second half. The Scottish manager later said that he “must have been taken off for smoker’s cough”.

1. David James

England’s number one confessed to a 15 year 20-a-day smoking habit earlier this year in his newspaper column. “I spent most of my career puffing away on fags: after training, before matches and even on the team coach,” he wrote. We’re surprised his afro never caught fire.

U.S. Smoking Rates Drop to 20 %

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said America has seen a decline in the number of current smokers to below 20 %. 43.3 million, or just under one-fifth of the population smoked in 2007 while in 2006 the figure stood at 20.8 %.

As a part of the Healthy People 2010 project America had set a goal of bringing adult smoking down to 12 % and although that goal still remains a distant dream there has been a slight decline in the smoking rates.

Dr. Matthew McKenna, the director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, “If we want to see far more people quit smoking, we need expanded access to stop-smoking programs, continued progress in eliminating secondhand smoke exposure and ongoing investment in programs that work.” There was a decline though in the number of people trying to give up smoking. In 1993 47 % people tried to give up smoking while in 2007 it dropped to 40 %.
The report also said that those most likely to quit smoking were between the ages of 18-24 as compared to the older smokers.

Whites came in second at 21 %, blacks at 20 %, Hispanics at 13 % and Asian Americans were the lowest at 10 %. McKenna said, “If, starting in 2009, all states were to fully implement tobacco-control programs at CDC-recommended levels of investment, an estimated 5 million fewer people in this country would smoke within five years, and hundreds of thousands of premature tobacco-related deaths would be prevented each year.”

Smoking-related diseases claim nearly 438,000 Americans’ lives each year and it is costs $193 billion a year which includes $97 billion in lost productivity and $96 billion in direct health care expenditures. Dr. McKenna said, “Even though we’ve come a long way, there’s a long way to go.”

Mint cigarettes fire up collectors

A tobacconist in Reading is about to sell some cigarettes which are at least 100 years past their sell-by date. Paul Gilmour, who owns Shave and Coster in Harris Arcade, was given a pack of five Paymaster cigarettes which he said dated back to somewhere between 1897 and 1913. He said: “An elderly couple came into the shop and asked me to find a good home for these cigarettes. “The woman said they had belonged to her mother and she had had them in a drawer for years.


Paymaster cigarettes dated back to somewhere between 1897 and 1913.

“I wasn’t familiar with the brand but I told her that some specialist museums took things like this so she gave them to me.”

Mr Gilmour looked up the Paymaster brand and discovered they were made by Cohen Weenen and Co of London. He said he believed the company started up in 1897 and had closed down by the beginning of the First World War.

He added: “What is absolutely amazing is that the packet is intact with all five cigarettes inside.

“These were the days when practically everybody smoked, so it is extraordinary that no-one smoked them in all that time.

“You wouldn’t want to smoke them now of course.”

Mr Gilmour made further inquiries and found the Cigarette Packet Collectors’ Club of Great Britain. He said: “I contacted them and discovered that the cigarette pack was extremely rare.

“They have offered me £120 and I expect they will auction it among their members.”

He has not been able to get in contact with the original owner and will be donating the money when he gets it to the Berkshire Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Centre in West Reading.

He said: “I believe I have discharged my duty in finding a good home for them.”

Barry Russell, secretary of the Cigarette Packet Collectors’ Club of Great Britain, said the puffs could be even older than Mr Gilmour believes.

He told the Reading Post Cohen Weenen was in fact founded in 1864 and converted into a limited company in 1927. It produced popular cigarette cards from 1891 until 1923.

He said of the Reading find: “It’s a very uncommon pack and doesn’t turn up very often, although I have one.”

High Taxes Less Smokers in Canada

High taxes on tobacco products have reduced the number of Pall Mall cigarette smokers in Canada. According to a study by economists at the Concordia University in Montreal, between 1998 to 2008, for every 10 percent hike in cigarette tax, the number of Canadians who lit up went down by 2.3 percent.

However, one group appears to be least affected by higher taxes on cigarettes. These are people in the age group 25 to 44. According to Sunday Azagba, the author of the study, these middle-aged smokers are not responsive to tax increases on tobacco products.

The younger age group of 12 to 24 are more sensitive to price increases caused by tax hike on cigarettes because majority of them are dependent on their allowance to finance their habit. However, majority of the middle-aged group are employed and at the peak of their earning capacity.

The study also found that the propensity to smoke was higher among Canadians who had only high school education compared with those who have post-secondary education.

Tax increases on cigarettes caused a carton of cigarette to have a price tag of $33.35 in 2008 in Ontario from $12.65 in 1998. The amount factored out inflation based on constant 2000 dollars. The increase was lesser in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Newfoundland and Labrador, where cigarettes sold at an average of mid-$40 in 2008 from $30 in 1998 per carton.

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Higher Cigarette Prices Climb Imperial Tobacco

Investors, on the other hand, will be celebrating. The shares rose 26p to £21.43 yesterday, on the hope that this could finally put an end to an ongoing price war in Spain. British American Camel Tobacco also ticked up 33p to £27.87. Analysts applauded Imperial’s stance although Citigroup urged caution: “While we expect the rest of the industry to follow Imperial’s lead on prices, we can’t be certain.

It may be that the rest of the industry wants to wait for a while to see if the government will change the tax system.”

The analysts retained a buy rating on the stock with a target price of £23. In the wider markets, there was a sense that the mood was shifting as brokers turned bullish on European stocks.

Nomura increased its recommendation from neutral to overweight, while Deutsche Bank upgraded its tactical view on European equities to positive.

They expect the global economy to pick up in the fourth quarter, as the impact of the higher oil price and Japan’s tsunami diminish. “Risks around oil have moderated,” they said, “And consensus growth expectations have been revised down sufficiently.”

The blue-chip index pushed past the significant 6,000 mark for the first time since May, although volumes were weak because of the US holiday for Independence Day.

The FTSE 100 closed up 27.78 at 6,017.54, while the mid-cap index ended the day 61.99 higher at 12,102.27.
Low volumes and little activity set traders dreaming of M&A. Yesterday’s rumour suggested either Procter & Gamble or Unilever would buy Reckitt Benckiser for around £50-a-share.

Competition issues over any acquisition would mean the eventual buyer would have to break up Reckitt, and the suggestion was that Colgate Palmolive could mop up any remaining parts. Reckitt shares ticked up 35p to £34.88, while Unilever was 25p higher at £20.37.

There was also talk that Dragon Oil, a £2.7bn oil producer with operations in the Caspian Sea, could be bought out by its biggest shareholder, the Emirates National Oil Company, for 700p-a-share. Rumour had it that China’s state-owned oil company CNOOC might also be interested in the company, driving the shares up 42½ to 550½p.

In the UK, property stocks rose with the market. British Land put on 14 to 629½p on the back of a bullish note from Deutsche Bank. The analysts said they expect the group’s share price to “appreciate considerably” over the next 12 months as the value of its properties increase.

They said the company is well placed to buy distressed property loans from the banks. They added that British Land has a better portfolio than Land Securities – up 14 at 880½p – with less central London offices and more out-of-town retail properties. Deutsche rates British Land a buy with a price target of 820p.

Broker comment also lifted temporary power provider Aggreko 36p to £19.80. Citigroup raised its target price from £17.33 to £23. The analysts said the company’s International Power Projects (IPP) should continue to grow on the back of three drivers – electricity consumption in non-OECD countries, potential in untapped countries, and extensions of existing contracts.

The top blue-chip riser was engineering group John Wood, which continued last week’s rally. It ended the day up 22.73 at 694p. The company was lifted by a mid-week trading update and an upgrade by Goldman Sachs from neutral to buy.

Rival Weir Group ticked up 44p to £21.85 in sympathy.

In corporate news, Essar Energy rose 6.1 to 422.1p after confirming that a meeting to rubberstamp its acquisition of an oil refinery in Cheshire would take place later this month.

On the downside, banks wobbled as fears of a Greek default re-emerged. Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warned that French proposals for the Greek debt rollover could push the country into default.

British banks would suffer little direct impact from a Greek default, but rather a second order effect as a result of their close ties with French and German banks, which have substantial investments in Greece.
Lloyds dropped 0.94 to 49.88p. Barclays lost 2.85 to 262.7p, and HSBC fell 2.1 to 627p.

Royal Bank of Scotland fell 0.58 to 39.11p, edging further away from the 50.2p level that would mean the Government would break-even on its near £15bn investment in the bank.

Cairn Energy was the top faller, losing 13.8 to 404.7p, after negative comments from JP Morgan.
The analysts cut their target price on the stock from 500p to 480p after Cairn dropped the price of the stake in Cairn India that it is selling to Vedanta.

Premier Foods was the biggest riser on the mid-cap index, although it gained only 1.63 to close the day at 18.71p.
Martin Deboo at Investec said: “Given the drubbing it had on Thursday and Friday last week, a dead-cat bounce is to be expected.” He put out a note on Premier with a hold rating and 20p target price.

Reports also emerged yesterday that the chief executive of Birds Eye Iglo, Martin Glenn, had turned down an offer to head up Premier Foods.

Another riser was engineering group Charter International, which added to Friday’s gains, ticking up 12 to 828½p.
The company has turned down a 780p-a-share offer from Melrose. UBS raised its target price on the stock from 550p to 850p.

M&A speculation also helped lift the London Stock Exchange 26p to £10.59. Weekend reports said senior executives at US exchange Nasdaq were meeting in New York to plot a £3.4bn merger with the LSE.

In smaller tech stocks, enterprise software company Kofax ticked up 19 to 464p after Espirito Santo Investment Bank reiterated its buy rating on the stock and boosted its target price to 612p from 551p, ahead of the company’s pre-close update.

New Hampshire’s Irresponsibility on the Smoking Behavior

In a new fiscal adventure, Republicans in Concord this week voted to reduce tobacco taxes by a dime per pack of cigarettes. The thinking: Out-of-state smokers will flock to New Hampshire to load up on Bond cheap smokes and, while they’re here, buy who knows what other products to bring about a retail boomlet.
The politicians, apparently taking the fictional part of Reaganomics for real, say that the tax cut will cause state revenues to grow. Time will tell. For what it’s worth, in a fiscal no te to House Bill 156, where the tax cut originated, the Department of Revenue Administration predicts that state tobacco tax revenue in 2012 could fall by more than $7.5 million if the levy is cut from the current $1.78 per pack to $1.68.
But assume the Republicans are right in their expectations of more revenues. Does that make the tax cut the responsible thing they say it is?
It does not, for a larger reason. The tax cut strategy is to draw smokers from neighboring states that, unlike New Hampshire, are making an effort to discourage tobacco consumption among their people on the grounds that smoking is a public health menace; the New Hampshire strategy would reduce the flow of cigarette tax dollars to those states, which run tobacco-education programs. Here are the facts:
Vermont, which levies a tax of $2.24 per pack, is spending $4.5 million of its own money this year on anti-smoking programs for its citizens.
Massachusetts, which levies a tax of $2.51 per pack, is spending $4.5 million of its own money on anti-smoking programs for its citizens.
Maine, which levies a tax of $2 per pack, is spending $9.9 million of its own money on anti-smoking programs for its citizens.
New Hampshire, which may soon have a tax of $1.68 per pack, spends zero dollars of its own money on anti-smoking programs, though annually 1,700 of its adults die from smoking-related illnesses and many more Granite Staters are exposed to tobacco smoke.
The only money spent in this state to discourage smoking comes from the hated feds: $1 million this year from the Centers for Disease Control to draft anti-smoking policies and messages, plus about $800,000 from the federal stimulus to help fund such things as a telephone-based service for people who want to quit smoking, in addition to $56,815 from last year’s heath reform bill to discourage pregnant women from smoking.
There you have it. New Hampshire, which ranks dead last among all states in trying to reduce smoking among its own citizens, sees a fiscal bounty in robbing other states of the resources that they would use to minimize the danger of the habit among their citizens.