Kindred Group’s flagship brand, Unibet, has extended its support to soccer in France to include basketball, renaming its #AuCoeurDuFootball program to #AuCoeurDuSport, seeking to deliver sports kits and equipment to 400 amateur clubs from both sports in 2023.
Saving on Sports Equipment
Titled “Sports at Heart,” the program will allow amateur football and basketball clubs to save on average of €2,500 ($2,675) on sports gear as Kindred Group continued to demonstrate its commitment to grassroots sport in France.
“Being at the heart of local communities, Kindred is a firm believer that grassroots sports plays a huge role in society,” said the head of Corporate Affairs France at Kindred Group, Adrien Julien, noting that amateur clubs were among those the hardest hit by the pandemic.
“Unibet is proud to continue to equip thousands of athletes, men and women, throughout France,” he added, stressing that all shirts provided by the brand would carry responsible gambling messages, in line with Kindred’s wider Journey Towards Zero approach.
The initiative began in 2019 in partnership with Act for Sports and during the four years, Unibet has equipped over 780 local French soccer clubs, providing support at a time when funding in amateur sports has been decimated. And now, the program is extended to include amateur basketball clubs.
Bringing People Together
Commenting on the announcement, Laurent Latour, secretary of FC Chancelade Marsac, one of the amateur football clubs which have benefited from #AuCoeurDuFootball, outlined that Unibet’s contribution “between shirts, equipment and materials,” has helped the club save around €3,500 ($3,745), an amount that is huge for a small club.
Further, the program “has helped to bring people together” as part of the Unibet Awards and through meetings with the other sponsored clubs, Latour explained, trying to portray the wider effects of the sponsorship provided by Unibet.
Unibet will provide close to 12,500 kits to 890 athletes at 100 sponsored basketball clubs and 300 soccer clubs, both men’s and women’s senior. Candidate clubs to benefit from the sponsorship will have until the end of February to apply for the program.
As one of the major players on the global gaming scene, Kindred Group operates nine brands across three continents and boasts a customer base of over 300 million, offering them entertainment in a safe, fair and sustainable environment.
The gambling group is listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm Large Cap and is a member of the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), as well as a founding member of the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).