Paddy Power launches campaign

Paddy Power, a Flutter Entertainment brand, has launched its new campaign urging betting operators to stop sponsoring football shirts. The ‘Save Our Shirt’ initiative aims to highlight how over half of England’s football teams were sponsored by a bookmaker in 2019-2020. 

The campaign was unveiled after Paddy Power drew criticism over its new commercial deal with English Championship team Huddersfield Town, with much of this directed at the size of the logo on the front of the team’s shirts. 

Some fans speculated that the deal could be a hoax, but this seemed to be disproven when the shirts were worn at a pre-season friendly in Rochdale. Following this, the FA contacted Huddersfield to raise concerns that the deal might be in breach of its sponsorship regulations.  

Since, Paddy Power has revealed that this was a stunt and that it was done to promote its new campaign. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the issues surrounding sports sponsorship and their branded logo will indeed be absent from the actual shirts.

“Shirt sponsorship in football has gone too far; we accept that there is a role for sponsors around football, but the shirt should be sacred,” said Paddy Power’s marketing director Victor Corcoran.

As part of the campaign, Paddy Power has organised a ‘shirt amnesty’ to take place on the 5^th of August, the date of the first season game. The operator plans to give away 500 of its new shirts, in exchange for older versions of the strip.

The company has also agreed to a similar deal with Scottish Premier League football club Motherwell, who will join the ‘Save Our Shirt’ campaign. Paddy Power will serve as Motherwell’s title sponsor for the 19-20 season, but its logo will not appear on players’ shirts – in line with the new initiative. Despite the lack of shirt branding, Motherwell said the deal represents the largest jersey sponsorship in the club’s history.