NESTLE took campaigners’ “breath away” yesterday after it tried to jack in its athletics’ sponsorship because the sports’ doping scandal “could negatively impact [its] reputation.”

The confectionary giant announced on Wednesday evening that it was terminating its partnership with the IAAF Kids Athletics programme with “immediate effect” after the “negative publicity associated with allegations of corruption and doping in sport made against the IAAF.

“We believe this could negatively impact our reputation and image,” the Swiss-based firm said.

But Nestle itself “has its own appalling record on multiple issues, health, water, environment — it goes on,” warned Patti Rundall, policy director of Baby Milk Action.

The group — as part of the International Baby Food Action Network — has spent decades organising boycotts of the firm over its “aggressive” marketing of baby foods in breach of international standards.

“We have been doing independent monitoring and tracking this company’s baby food marketing for decades and know for sure that it poses a real and continuing threat to child health and survival,” she told the Star.

The World Health Organisation estimates that around 800,000 infant deaths a year could be prevented by breastfeeding rather than being formula-fed.

Campaigners at War on Want, which published report The Baby Killer in 1974 showing the dire effects on infant nutrition and disease posed by companies — with Nestle at the forefront — pushing powdered milk on the developing world, also raised their eyebrows at the announcement.

Spokesman Ross Hemingway told the Star: “War on Want has long had concerns about the social impact of Nestle’s operations around the world.

“How ironic that it should now be concerned about its already tarnished reputation.”

IAAF president Lord Coe was also “angered and dismayed” by Nestle pulling out of the sponsorship, saying: “It’s the kids who will suffer.”

Coe has spent the last year schmoozing corporate sponsors jittery over the corruption and doping allegations engulfing world athletics.

Sportswear giant Adidas already pulled out of an 11-year deal last month, with the IAAF expected to lose out more than £21 million as a result.

Nestle was in the last year of the £690,000-a-year deal, which IAAF says has already involved over 15 million children and had plans to expand to 15 more countries next year, training 360 lecturers and 8,460 PE teachers.

But Rundall urged the public not to be taken in by Nestle’s “amazingly effective PR machine that is designed solely to cover up its bad practices.”

“It’s a brilliant cover for their junk-food marketing and projects a corporate image of being healthy and responsible. This is a multipronged PR strategy to gain the trust of children, parents, teachers and policy-makers.”

And she said that because bad diet is the globally “the biggest cause of death and disability — far bigger than physical inactivity — we are never thrilled to see child-focused organisations become dependent on this company.

“It’s far too risky — and the IAAF is feeling the pain now.”