Wealthy footballers asking fans to donate and save a child's life

[Eastie77Returns]

A premier league footbal club in my area has posted pictures of a little boy who is very ill meeting players before a recent game. He urgently needs life saving treatment that costs hundreds of thousands of pounds. The pictures are lovely and he's clearly having an amazing time kudos to those players. The players and club have sent out an appeal to fans, asking everyone to urgently donate money for the child's treatment.

The players in the pictures earn millions a year. Hundreds of people have pointed out in the post comments that if each player in the team donated £10k, an amount they would barely notice, this precious boy would be able to get this treatment. The club itself posts revenue of millions each match day and could cover the cost without blinking. They've spent £100s of millions on new players ffs.

AIBU to not understand this. The manager of the team earns £10 million a year. He has children of his own. I don't understand how you'd sleep at night, leaving a child you've met to die when you have the means at the tip of your fingers to potentially save them? (and it could be done discretely as I understand the club wouldn't want everyone to know).

Pretty much every time I tap my card in a shop/restaurant it shows a message saying do you want to donate x amount to a charity..press yes/no.

Oh boo hoo can't remind them they are fortunate beyond their wildest dreams eh.

Having said that the way to address all this nonsense is through fairer taxation. Then the rich can be left alone with thier remaining loot, ordinary people are guilted into giving disproportionately, and those in need of healthcare get it via the NHS supported by the taxes. Everyone's a winner.

Arsenal already have their own charitable foundation, which supports vulnerable children and other causes. They’ve raised over £5.5 million through their partnership with Save the Children alone.

Their foundation spent over £700,000 last year supporting charitable causes. So why should the needs of the children already benefiting from that work become less important than this particular child?

Of course it would be wonderful if the treatment were funded immediately, but the club is already doing a great deal of charitable work. I don’t think it’s reasonable to criticise them for not personally funding every cause they promote.

Arsenal’s own charity accounts confirm that first-team players donated a day’s wages, raising nearly £188,000 across just two years. Bukayo Saka has personally supported life-changing operations for children in Nigeria, while Kai Havertz’s foundation donated £30,500 to a children’s hospice.

And that’s before considering the millions raised by footballers such as Marcus Rashford, or the work of Arsenal’s own charitable foundation, which has spent over £3 million in five years.

These people aren’t simply standing around asking ordinary supporters to put their hands in their pockets. They have a substantial, documented history of charitable giving, and I think it’s incredibly unfair to imply otherwise.

And…while I’m on my high horse. Figures for 23/24 show over £70m donations from foundations of Premier League clubs, charitable spending is up 28% in five years. The Premier League’s own charity has also donated more than £180m between 2021-25.

It doesn’t take much to do a bit of research before you complain about footballers not doing enough.

Are you alright ? I don't know why you are being so aggressive .

Live Aid always puzzled me when just a few of those pop stars could have solved it themselves instead of staging a concert!

@Lomonald are you alright? I don't know why you're being so passive aggressive.

Treatment in the U.K. is free? I don’t understand fundraising at all?

Tesco donated over £165m last year…just saying.

One way that large companies can do their bit is by not only donating themselves but by encouraging others to donate. You don’t have to push the button, but if you do then it helps, and a lot of money is raised by Tesco and other companies asking the question.

Tax deductible for higher rate taxpayers and corporate entities. Trebles all round.

YANBU. Of course. We don’t really have a spectrum of people who are not-millionaires-but-still-wealthy anymore, people tend to be living hand to mouth or super rich (like the footballers).

Wouldn’t it just be better for them to select 1 person every month/few months and just eradicate their issue rather than donating a bit then appealing to the public for more?

Not all treatment is available in the uk though is it. The NHS isn’t going to fund treatment for specialists that are operating in the USA.

I suspect they don’t because, unfortunately there is a never ending supply of these requests.

there is generally a reason the NHs don’t provide the treatment tbh.

Picture of starving children sell records.

Yeah, it's cheeky fuckery. Should be law that all children who need life saving operations / medicine have it paid for from everyone earning above X amount based on their nationality (percentage based on earnings). Pick a nationality and that's the country's offspring you support. They wouldn't miss it.

They might deduct the tax, but they’ve still lost the cash by donating- it’s not like it makes you money somehow

Certainly wasn't being passive aggressive, i am perfectly fine thank you, but you indicated (aggressively)that i thought rich footballers should keep all their money or something, when it is quite clear that isn't what i meant and I asked why you were aggressive.

No because more money than is needed is raised and the remaining money is with a cancer charity and can help out others. And why would we want to just help one child every now and again?

The publicity that Sunderland generated around Bradley Lowry helped to establish a legacy that still lasts today, years after his death. The charity has helped 10s of children get the life saving and/or life prolonging treatment that without the awareness of Bradley’s plight could not have happened.

THAT is why it is important for Arsenal to use their platform for good…because of the lasting effect that simply paying for the treatment cannot do.

Often the treatment these families want to seek is abroad only, slightly dubious or experimental, with small chances of success. But the parents are desperate for it not to the end of the road with their loved ones- which I get. Where I've seen the money raised the child has often been too sick to make the trip or have the treatment ultimately. The NHS does have free treatment but will play it safe with known tried and tested methods because they have to be sensible with how they spend their funds. I give a little bit to these appeals when they come up but I'm not often convinced they are a good idea for anyone.

There are thousands upon thousands of people in the same boat. Should the football club pay for every single sick or disabled childs treatment, experiences etc?

Often the NHS is not funding a treatment because the treatment is futile or not in the child's best interests.

Personally I never give to the go fund mes for things like this - & also the various 'armies' of activists that try to stop a child's life support being turned off.

Go fund mes for equipment like a wheelchair or adapted trike etc are different & worthwhile.

Give to charities & organizations that support the research & treatment of the conditions rather than to a single persons treatment that may not even be in their interests

Last year Tesco donated £170 million to charity. It was the second biggest donator in the FTSE 100 in absolute terms (after GSK), and the highest donator as a percentage of pre tax profits (12%). HSBC, Shell and BP were up there too at the £100 million mark. Total Corporate donations in the UK were over £4 billion and in the US it was over $40 billion. Most big companies that are household names will donate substantial sums to charity. Smaller companies less so.

Whilst footballers earn a phenomenal amount of money I think it’s only fair to point out the also pay an enormous amount of tax, which is funding society along with the rest of us

The GoFundMe looks rather dubious, to be honest. They’re not raising money for a groundbreaking new treatment that isn’t yet available in the UK.

They’re raising money for a spinal surgery that is available in the UK, but that NHS surgeons do not believe he will survive and therefore cannot ethically perform on him. His odds of survival will not be any better if he gets the surgery in another country.

Additionally, the GoFundMe doesn’t name the hospital at which his family intends to seek treatment, or name the surgeons lined up to operate on him, so no one can independently verify how much it will actually cost (or even if any of the money is ever used for this purpose).

That's not quite true. Businesses can make a bigger difference to their tax income by making a donation that is less than the tax they would have paid

The company can be better off making a donation

Agree - it’s one thing if the child is being taken to receive a brand new, game changing treatment that simply isn’t available in the UK yet, but this looks like another Charlie Gard/Alfie Evans case where the NHS is declining to continue aggressive interventions on a terminally ill child who will see no benefit (and if he does undergo the surgery, will most likely die on the table).

No thanks. i don't want to support other people's children. I'll be happily giving my millions to animal charities only.