Paddy Power & Motherwell Team Up For Missing People Campaign
Paddy Power has teamed up with Scottish Premiership side Motherwell and charity Missing People in a bid to raise awareness of missing children.
The new campaign in support of the charity will see the bookmaker fill a stand at Motherwell’s Fir Park with blank silhouettes.
The SPFL season has returned with games taking place behind closed doors, and while other clubs have filled empty seats with cardboard cutouts of fans, the bookmaker say they will highlight the ongoing absence of missing people by leaving them blank.
Missing People says that one person is reported missing in the UK every 90 seconds, which makes an average of 35 in the length of time it takes to complete a football match.
“We all know fans are missing from football at the moment, but some are missing from wider life, too,” said a Paddy Power spokesman on the bookmaker’s website.
“We hope this campaign, and striking image, can spark conversations across the country – as the majority of our customer base are young men, the demographic that’s most at risk of going missing.”
In addition to 1,190 silhouettes, which were first seen during Motherwell’s opening home game of the season against Dundee United, Paddy Power says it will also place posters of missing people across its 650 stores in the locations that they were last seen to ‘help find, or simply establish the safety of, some of those who have disappeared’.
Jo Youle, Chief Executive of Missing People, said: “This is a highly visible and needed opportunity for families in communities across the UK to raise awareness of their missing loved one – at a time when it is so hard to search due to COVID-19 restrictions.
“We will also be getting the message out via Paddy Power stores to reach a key group of people at higher risk of going missing: men aged 18-39.
“Important funding through this partnership will help more than 500 people in crisis through 24/7 support on our helpline, at a time when more people than ever are needing that support.”
