Paddy Power, together with Stonewall UK has begun their #RainbowLaces campaign for the second year running.
Starting in 2013, Stonewall UK and Paddy Power teamed up together to create their campaign in the aim to remove homophobia from football and all sport. Most importantly, the companies are focusing on changing attitudes rather than urging players to come out.
All 92 professional clubs in England and Scotland have been sent rainbow laces for their players to wear on the pitch. So far, 29 of these clubs have switched their laces including Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City. Local team Cheltenham Town has also backed the campaign by changing their laces.
Last year, 54 football clubs took part in the campaign, and with the backing of the Premier League this year, 2014’s campaign is set to be even bigger.
Their advert features Arsenal players including Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Santi Cazorla and Theo Walcott. The players each say a line about features they have that they cannot change including: “I can’t help that I look like Lewis Hamilton” (Walcott), “I can’t change my height” (Cazorla) and “I can’t change that I look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” (Oxlade-Chamberlain).
Paddy Power has urged that they will keep this campaign going for as long as it takes for discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender players to be removed from the game.
We think that this is a great campaign, Paddy Power and Stonewall UK has found a simple way to add their campaign into matches – all football players need laces, and switching their laces won’t affect their performance!
We look forward to seeing how this campaign progresses over the weekend and upcoming months as more teams back the #RainbowLaces campaign.
If you want to get involved in this campaign you can buy your own pair of rainbow laces at Paddy Power betting shops or through Stonewall UK’s website.