Paddy Power & Motherwell Team Up for Missing People Campaign

August 14, 2020 

Paddy Power has teamed up with Scottish Premiership Motherwell FC and charity Missing People in a bid to raise awareness of missing people in the UK. 

The new campaign will see Paddy Power fill a stand at Motherwell’s ground with blank silhouettes, as opposed to the cardboard cut-outs of pets, cartoons and people that have become typical during the COVID-19 pandemic as gathering for major sporting events remains restricted. 

The Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) season has returned with games taking place behind closed doors, and while other clubs have filled empty seats with cardboard cut-outs of fans, the bookmakers say they will highlight the ongoing absence of missing people by leaving them blank. 

Missing People reports that one person is reported missing in the UK every 90 seconds - an average of 35 in the length of time it takes to complete a football match, including the half-time break. In total, around 186,000 people go missing every year with 86,000 of those being children. Approximately 1,000,000 people a year are directly affected by disappearance. 

“We all know fans are missing from football at the moment, but some are missing from wider life, too,” said a Paddy Power spokesman. 

“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. 

“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.”