Accies sign stadium deal with cannabis company

AFTER the lows of falling victim to a £1million banking scam and losing a sponsor, Hamilton Academical must have been desperate to start the new season on a high.

But a bid to boost its fortunes has raised eyebrows after the Scottish Premier League club announced a stadium-naming deal with a firm that sells legal cannabis-based products.

Hamilton Academical FC’s New Douglas Park will now be the Hope CBD Stadium.

Hope CBD has had a shop at New Douglas since last year, offering items such as tea and sweets that contain cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of the cannabis plant.

The arrangement will net Accies a five-figure payment per season, as well as a share of the

‘It’s a way of normalising it’

profits from the sale of Hope CBD’s products.

It comes months after the club lost nearly £1million in a bank scam and its previous stadium sponsor, SuperSeal, went bust.

The club insists there is ‘no high’ from CBD and chief executive Colin McGowan, also the owner and director of Hope CBD, told STV News: ‘We are pretty well-known for the work we do in the field of addiction.’

But Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Substance Use Research in Glasgow, described the deal as ‘regrettable’, adding: ‘It’s part and parcel of cannabis becoming much more socially accepted. It is a way of normalising it.’

The club’s website says products are ‘non-psychoactive or addictive... consuming it results in no mind-altering effects’. The SPFL declined to comment.