Over the last few weeks, disgruntled football fans have been raising money for food banks instead of paying for pay per view games offered up by the Premier League alongside Sky and BT Sport. An initiative started by NUFC Fans Food Bank on twitter has now caught on and many other club fans groups have donated £14.95 (the price of the games) to local food banks instead.

The controversial pay-per-view games were brought in at the start of this season in an effort to let fans watch every game instead of just those shown on tv. It was also a good way to rake in lost money from lack of fans, But many football fans were extremely unhappy with the price, but it wasn’t just fans that were unhappy Mike Ashley the Newcastle united owner came out “calling on the premier league to immediately act and review the current pay-per-view arrangements.” Yesterday sky box office released the figures for the pay per view games, they ranged from 20,000 to 140,000 considering sky sports clocked views of 3.3 million and match of the day 6.5 million The premier league will ultimately consider this a failure. Today premier league clubs will vote on whether to continue the pay per view games, but it is thought it will be voted against by many clubs.

From this experiment there has come of some good, the #bocycottppv movement has seen fans from clubs up and down the country raise thousands for food banks and charities in their local area. It started with Newcastle fans who raised over £20,000 from just one game and donated it to the west end food bank. Many other clubs have followed suit such as Liverpool, Leeds, and Aston Villa and it is great to see fans pulling together in such a hard time for many people across the country. Latest estimates put the amount as over £300,000 has been raised by fans. This is a great grass-roots movement which has also no doubt connected into the free school meals during holidays campaign led by Marcus Rashford a young Manchester United Footballer who had direct experience of food poverty. It does indicate the strength of feeling across local communities of this major issue within the UK.