Football League kicks off life-saving campaign
The Football League, celebrating its 120th anniversary this year, gave its backing to the appeal and contacted all 72 Championship, League 1 and League 2 clubs inviting them to promote organ donation to supporters at their final home game of the season and via their club website.
All 72 clubs in the Coca-Cola Football League have marked the 40th anniversary of the UK's first heart transplant by urging their supporters to sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register.
"When we first approached the Football League Board with suggestions for a league wide campaign, we had no idea what level of commitment we could really expect," says Tamsin May, Campaigns and Marketing Manager at UK Transplant. "We were fortunate in already having the support of two senior Football league employees whose lives have been affected by organ donation and transplantation."
All 72 clubs signed up to the campaign and supported it through a range of activity besides online promotion including adverts in the match-day programme, big-screen advertising, tannoy announcements and displaying posters at games played during the last weekend of April and first weekend of May.
"We are thrilled that the League has also promised to show our TV adverts at the league play-offs at Wembley. This will really help drive home the message to supporters that they should join the register," says Ms May. "The positive response we've had from clubs has been fantastic. We hope this marks the beginning of an enduring partnership with the football community."