‘Islie unhe God aise hi nahi bulate’ – Fans react as Sachin Tendulkar speaks about rejecting Tobacco ads

On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day on May 31st, Indian cricketing legend, Sachin Tendulkar revealed that he got several offers from the tobacco companies to promote their brand but he refused. Speaking at an event in Mumbai on Tuesday, Tendulkar said that his father advised him to never promote the use of tobacco.

The 50-year-old had a legendary cricketing career where he amassed 34,357 with a record of 100 centuries across all formats. Tendulkar has been an inspiration for many young and aspiring cricketers and he doesn’t want to put a bad influence on his fans. He said that a tobacco brand offered him to put their sticker on his bat to make money, but he refused it.

This was a promise I made to my father: Sachin Tendulkar

“When I started playing for India, I had just come out of school. I started getting many advertisement offers but my father told me never to promote tobacco products. I got many such offers but never accepted any of them,” Tendulkar said as quoted in Money Control.

“This was a promise I made to my father. He told me I am a role model and a lot of people will follow what I do. That is why I have never endorsed tobacco products or alcohol. In the 1990s my bat didn’t have a sticker on it, I didn’t have a contract. But everybody else in the team was endorsing two brands in particular – Wills and Four Square,” he further added.

He concluded, “I didn’t break the promise that I gave to my father by not endorsing these brands. I got many offers from them to endorse their brand by having their sticker on my bat but I didn’t want to promote all that. I have stayed away from these two things and have never broken the promise to my father.”

It is noted that World No Tobacco Day is celebrated every year on ay 31st to inform the public about the dangers of using tobacco and the business practices of tobacco companies. The World Health Organisation (WHO) started this initiative in a fight against Tobacco.

Here is how fans reacted