Sky Bet pledges to donate up to £3m to British Heart Foundation
EFL sponsor to give the money over the course of the year, kicking off with £10,000 for every goal scored during the Championship, League One and League Two play-offs
Sky Bet has pledged to donate up to £3m to the British Heart Foundation (BHF) as part of a year-long campaign to encourage 270,000 people to learn CPR.
The Flutter Entertainment-owned company will give the money over the course of the year, starting with £10,000 for every goal scored in both normal and extra-time of the upcoming Sky Bet English Football League play-offs.
The initiative aims to put the BHF’s online training course, ‘RevivR’, in the spotlight, which teaches CPR in just 15 minutes.
The ‘Every Minute Matters’ campaign includes a number of famous football faces that make up the ‘Re-starting 11’.
Co-managers Graeme Souness and Glenn Hoddle, lined up alongside Luton Town captain Tom Lockyer and Premier League legend David Ginola at Wembley to kick-start the initiative.
All four, as well as the remainder of the ‘Re-starting 11’, have all been impacted by life-threatening heart conditions.
With the first fixture set to kick-off on Friday 3 May, the campaign will run from then until next year’s play-offs.
Sky Bet chief commercial officer Steve Birch said: “We’re incredibly proud of our title sponsorship of the Sky Bet play-offs and it’s amazing to take our involvement even further and work with the British Heart Foundation to create the ‘Every Minute Matters’ campaign.
“It’s extraordinary to think that in just 15 minutes we can learn such a valuable skill, and the real-life stories from the ‘Re-Starting 11’ are truly powerful.
“We’re confident the £3m we hope to raise will make a big difference for the BHF and that we can achieve the goal of seeing 270,000 people learn lifesaving CPR through the RevivR training course.”
The ‘Re-starting 11’ hope to raise awareness throughout the play-offs by recalling their own experiences in a bid to help the general public learn vital CPR skills.
In March, the Sky Bet EFL Building Foundations fund was set up as part of the title sponsorship extension agreed back in November.
The Leeds-based operator partnered with the English Football League to issue a total of £600,000 in grants through the fund.
The fund provided each EFL club community organisation £10,000 to invest in ongoing programmes or develop new initiatives, such as Blackburn Rovers ‘Remember the Rovers’ campaign, aimed at providing help to fans with Alzheimer’s and dementia.