Anthony Fowler, a former boxer turned cannabis oil entrepreneur, has faced criticism from medical experts urging him to cease making potentially harmful claims about his products. Despite this, a group of former football stars has continued to actively promote his business in recent days.

This team of high-profile personalities, including Matt Le Tissier, Paul Merson, Emile Heskey, Chris Kirkland, Mark Crossley, and John Aldridge, act as enthusiastic promoters for Fowler’s enterprise, Supreme CBD. They regularly highlight the therapeutic benefits of his products through social media, often engaging with each other’s posts to amplify their reach. Without these well-known figures, Fowler’s brand would likely have a smaller audience and less perceived legitimacy.

Fowler himself claims that CBD has significantly improved his son’s autistic behaviors and had a profound impact on his daughter, for whom he opted out of chemotherapy to treat a tumor on her leg.

Daily Mail Sport attempted to gauge whether these former athletes, who serve as the company’s ‘ambassadors,’ are comfortable endorsing a brand associated with such contentious claims. However, inquiries have been met with silence.

Initially, some of the ex-footballers claimed ignorance regarding Fowler’s more controversial assertions. They stated that their endorsements were solely based on the product’s perceived benefits for pain and anxiety relief. To date, none of them have publicly supported or shared Fowler’s more extreme statements about the capabilities of his products.

Former Liverpool and England striker Emile Heskey is one of the high-profile ex-footballers who Anthony Fowler has roped into promoting Supreme CBD

Boxing icon Ricky Hatton was also a CBD ‘ambassador’, before his untimely death last month aged 46

Fowler, seen here with his partner Serena Stregapede, has recently pushed an autism treatment the NHS calls ‘fake’ and potentially ‘harmful’ 

Despite being shown how Fowler has marketed his CBD offerings as “treatments” for children and alternatives to conventional medical care, none of the ‘ambassadors’ have publicly distanced themselves from the company as of now.

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.

When we approached former Southampton great Matt Le Tissier, he claimed we were attempting to ‘destroy’ his character

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

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.

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

Fowler is a former Olympic boxer who fought 18 times professionally, and took home a bronze medal at the 2013 AIBA world championships

Katie Price, the glamour model turned CBD ambassador, has claimed that the Fowlers ‘healed’ their daughter themselves

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.