I approached the celebrity footballers making money cheerleading for Supreme CBD and Olympian Anthony Fowler, who has been criticised over 'fake' autism treatments. This is what they said

As boxer turned cannabis oil entrepreneur Anthony Fowler was being urged by medical experts to stop making dangerous boasts about the products he is selling, his assembled squad of ex-footballers continued their prolific promotional work for him in the past few days.

Those star names – Matt Le Tissier, Paul Merson, Emile Hesley, Chris Kirkland, Mark Crossley and John Aldridge – are his Supreme CBD company’s cheerleaders. They extol its products’ therapeutic values by sharing Fowler’s tweets, at times acting like team-mates as they comment on each other’s posts about his products. Without these ‘influencer’ names, Fowler would have a far smaller platform and his products would have less credibility.

Fowler is an individual who says CBD eased his son’s autistic behaviours and had a ‘massive’ effect on his daughter after he had rejected chemotherapy to treat a tumour on her leg. 

An individual who in 2020 tweeted a grotesque clip of a child fitting in a cot and seemingly being administered with a substance, which he headlined ‘CBD oil helps save lives’. An individual who has recently pushed an autism treatment the NHS calls ‘fake’ and potentially ‘harmful’ - and who disregards warnings from a raft of British regulatory medical and food safety authorities that CBD oil should not be given to under-18s.

Daily Mail Sport has sought to establish if these Supreme CBD ‘ambassadors’ and promoters are comfortable with extolling the virtues of such a company and individual. But we have been met with a wall of silence from them.

A number of the ex-footballers group initially pleaded ignorance when we put concerns about Fowler’s claims to them. They told us that they were only promoting his firm’s cannabis oil for easing pain and anxiety and had found it beneficial. None of them has supported or retweeted Fowler’s more extreme claims about its remarkable powers.

We showed the ‘ambassadors’ how Fowler has presented his CBD products as ‘treatments’ for children and as an alternative to paediatric hospital care. But, as of today, none of them have chosen to distance themselves from the company.

Le Tissier said that our approach to him on the subject was part of our attempt to ‘destroy’ his character. He did not address the question of Fowler advocating cannabis oil for tumours and autism, stating that our inquiries belong to a campaign of ‘propaganda and personal attacks’ against him.

Crossley said of the broader health claims ‘I didn’t know that. No comment’ and put down the phone. Kirkland asked us not to quote or reveal any detail of two conversations we had with him about Supreme CBD. Aldridge shut the conversation down. ‘No, no, no, no. It’s good for me,’ he said.

Merson’s agent said that the 57-year-old ‘only ever said it (CBD) helps with his anxiety, especially when he flies and sleeps’. We have been told that our reporting has been passed on to Merson but have heard no more. There has been no response to our many messages to Heskey and his representatives.

It seems fair to assume that these men entered a promotional relationship with Fowler and Supreme CBD because of the therapeutic values they perceived cannabis oil to have. Many sportspeople struggle with muscular pain, sleep loss and depression after retirement and for some, cannabis oil has helped.

It has no doubt earned them all a nice little sideline income, too. A name like Le Tissier, with more than 650,000 followers on X, could typically expect to get around 35 per cent of revenue from the sale of products purchased with the promotional code he always uses. And with a reach as big as his, possibly a promotional bonus of anything between £5,000 and £15,000 per post.

Le Tissier’s promotion of Supreme CBD is part of his general promotion of ‘natural non-pharmaceutical product for natural ailments’. He told Daily Mail Sport that ‘mainstream media have become government and big pharma propagandists’ and that: ‘I never see anyone criticising the Covid jabs despite them actually killing people.’

A name like Merson – deemed ‘mid-tier’ by industry standards with just short of 500,000 followers – could expect a base payment per tweet and 15 to 30 per cent on sales. The same goes for Aldridge.

For Heskey, with 78,000 followers, Crossley (47k) and Kirkland (41k), there might be a smaller flat fee per of £1,000 per tweet and possibly 20 per cent of revenue. We have not been able to discuss these details with any of them. Or to establish whether the commission on sales for some of these ‘ambassadors’ might be as high as 50 per cent.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) revealed in a ruling last year that John Hartson had granted Supreme CBD direct access to his social media accounts, allowing the company to post on his behalf. He is no longer linked with the firm. 

In the past two years, the ASA have censured Fowler twice and his ambassadors once - for making medicinal and health claims about these products, in breach of industry rules, and for failing to disclose they are being paid for sales they generate. This created negative publicity for Le Tissier and Merson who sometimes now tweet with the 'ad' hashtag.

The ex-players’ evangelising messages suggest a reluctance to consider the fact that they are implicitly legitimising the broader claims about health benefits Fowler is making for his company, which desperate and impressionable parents may seize on. ‘Do you agree with everything your employer does?’ one of the ex-players asked us. ’Even I don’t know half the stuff you’re saying.’

But Fowler’s social media claims about his products have hardly gone hidden while snowballing way beyond what the influencers are promoting.

He had his wife alongside him and his daughter on his knee in the video when he described how CBD had helped in the treatment of a condition called LCH (Langerhans cell histiocytosis), which the child was diagnosed with by specialists at the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. The disease, classified by the World Health Organisation as a cancer, saw her treated by an oncologist – an expert in the study, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Fowler explained in the video, viewed by 187,000 people on X, that while his daughter’s tumour was not cancerous, LCH was ‘a childhood cancer’ for which the doctors treating her had proposed chemotherapy and morphine. He said he had rejected this advice, revealing: ‘We got into trouble over it. They called social services and said I wasn’t looking after my kid.’

He claimed that a combination of CBD, his wife’s organic cooking, ‘bone broth’ and turmeric – rather than chemotherapy or morphine – had reduced the size of his daughter’s tumour by half.

After describing the scenes he had observed at a children’s ward – ‘young girls with no hair, little babies’ - Fowler said: ‘Don’t be fooled you need to have all this chemotherapy stuff. Anyone does what they want. I don’t judge no one. Please watch my other videos. If you’ve got a sick family member we can help you so much.’ 

The messaging can only encourage parents to ignore chemotherapy treatment being proposed by hospital medics in favour of advice like his own.

In another clip, Fowler was videoed feeding his daughter CBD oil from a pipette and describing how it had hugely improved her condition and prevented her ‘limping’ because of the tumour. In yet another, Katie Price described how the Fowlers ‘refused hospital treatment and healed her themselves which is amazing’. Price's video was viewed 631,000 times on X.

Fowler has not responded to our requests for comment. In 2020, he urged his followers to share his video of a child suffering a fit and eventually being calmed – stating: ‘Watch how CBD oil helps this little boy instantly. It’s horrible how pharmaceutical companies brainwash people and won’t give them what they need.’ Nearly 600 followers retweeted.

Cancer Research UK this week urged caution amid claims that CBD might be a solution for a disease classified as cancer.

Caroline Geraghty, a senior specialist information nurse at the organisation, told Daily Mail Sport: ‘There isn’t enough evidence to show that cannabis or the chemicals within it, such as CBD oil, can be used to treat cancer.

‘Some cannabis-based products can be prescribed by specialist doctors to relieve sickness as a side-effect of chemotherapy. More research in large-scale clinical trials is needed to know what other benefits cannabis could have in treatment.’

York University associate professor in addiction Ian Hamilton voiced concern about the effects of CBD on children and ‘the appeal these sports influencers carry’.

In the past few days, Fowler’s tweeting squad have been busy pushing his products. Aldridge tweeted a video of himself in the firm’s offices, stocking up on his ‘favourite products’. 

Crossley tweeted congratulations to Aldridge and said that he must do the same soon. Crossley and Kirkland both congratulated Fowler on a tweet in which he was offering free products to customers who told him their story. ‘Brilliant Ant,’ said Kirkland.

Le Tissier has been updating his X followers on a 72-hour ‘water-fast’, assuring them that they are fine to keep taking their Supreme CBD products while fasting. 

Merson, a particular prolific tweeter on the Fowler’s products, has been running a Supreme CBD competition. ‘All you have to do is retweet my tweet below and comment why you want to win and I’ll pick a winner,’ he tells them, quoting his usual promotional code.