Paddy Power adds more teams to ‘Save Our Shirt’ campaign

Bookmaker Paddy Power has expanded its ‘Save Our Shirt’ football sponsorship campaign by signing up English League One club Southend United and League Two team Macclesfield Town.

Paddy Power will sponsor both teams for the 2019-20 season, but will forgo its front-of-shirt branding exposure in line with its new campaign.

Launched through a partnership with English Championship club Huddersfield Town, Save Our Shirt sees Paddy Power call for betting operators to stop striking shirt sponsorship deals with football clubs.

“This is a record-breaking deal for the club, commercially, but also a huge victory for the fans and everyone associated with Southend United,” Southend’s head of commercial, Rhys Ellingham, said.

“We’ve been patiently waiting to announce that we are joining Save Our Shirt, and are delighted to return our kits to the fans this season. We encourage all other clubs and sponsors to join the campaign.”

Macclesfield’s first team manager, Sol Campbell, added: “We’re delighted to have Paddy Power saving our shirt. The club saw their campaign and were really keen to be a part of it and we wanted to return our kit back to our fans.”

Paddy Power unveiled details of the campaign last week after initially receiving criticism for its deal with Huddersfield – before the shirt sponsorship element was revealed to be a hoax. Fans and the English Football Association raised concerns about the size of the Paddy Power logo on the front of the players’ shirts, but the bookmaker later confirmed that the over-sized sash branding was a stunt to launch the campaign.

League Two side Newport County and Scottish Premier League club Motherwell have also signed up to support the campaign.