Arsenal do their bit for the refugees with Save The Children donation
Arsenal football club are doing their bit to ease the refugee crisis. The Gunners will donate £1 for every ticket sold during their Premier League match with Stoke City this weekend to the Save The Children charity.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger explains:
“For the game against Stoke, for every ticket sold, £1 will be donated to victims of the Syrian crisis. It’s an exceptional circumstance and I’m very happy that our club contributes to help refugees to settle in countries where they come without anything.
“We’ll give £1 for every ticket sold [against Stoke] and if everyone can contribute like we do then I think we can give very, very strong help.”
The Stoke City match is a category B fixture:
So much for the Arsenal. What about the Save the Children charity?
The charity is well run. Although it has attracted criticism. In 2013, Save the Children was caught in the media’s crosshairs. The Indy featured allegations the charity had spiked stories about fuel poverty to woo EDF and British Gas sponsorship. The charity denied any wrongdoing.
Also in 2013, the Mail looked at the boss’s pay:
It was revealed earlier this week that Mr [Jon] Forsyth earned a salary of £163,000, which is now known to include £22,560 in performance-related pay…
Three staff at Save the Children earn more than £140,000. The highest is chief operating officer Annabel Hoult who earned £168,653 last year.
The Mail omitted to say what they should be earning. Less? More?
In 2015 the Times reported more on the business of giving:
Save the Children spent a third of its advertising budget with an agency run by its chief executive’s brother, The Sun reported today. The children’s charity employed the Adam and Eve agency, whose founding partner is Jon Forsyth, brother of Justin Forsyth, who has led Save the Children since 2010.
Last year’s £729,343 spend – one third of the charity’s £2 million budget for advertising and creative projects – was approaching double the £443,693 the charity spent with Adam and Eve in 2013…
“Save the Children’s working relationship with Adam and Eve predates Justin Forsyth working at the charity and was started after a thorough competitive tender process overseen by an external third party,” said a spokesman for the charity.
“Mr Forsyth has no input in awarding any contracts to Adam and Eve, and the relationship has been consistently openly declared in Save’s annual report.”
Save the Children says that £308 million of its £348 million outgoings was spent on charitable work last year. Of the remaining £40 million, £20.3 million went on fundraising.
Every little helps.
You can donate direct to the charity here.
Posted: 11th, September 2015 | In: Arsenal, Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
