Paddy power blind footballers ad under investigation

We reported only last week that Paddy Power was pushing the boundaries again with its money back advertisement featuring partially sighted footballers kicking a cat into a tree after mistaking it for the ball and wouldn’t you know it, there have been more than 400 complaints to the advertising watchdog. The advert which was created by Big Al’s Creative Emporium was approved by Clearcast which is an organization that looks at advertisements before broadcasting and is part of Paddy Powers campaign in the run up to the World Cup in South Africa. However the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) is now investigating whether the advertisement breaks the advertising code after receiving complaints that it was offensive in the way it portrayed partially sighted people and might encourage cruelty to animals. In their defence Paddy Power went out of its way to ensure that genuinely sight impaired people were used rather than actors and the ad even included Ajmal Ahmed who is captain of the English squad playing in this summer’s Blind World Football Championship but it was pointed out that TV viewers would not be aware that those featured were genuinely blind. Paddy Power is no stranger to controversy and in fact an earlier ad  featuring four actors in wheelchairs never made it to the screen and was withdrawn on advice from Clearcast. We think it’s great and is well done with a sense of humour so we say ”get a life” to those who have nothing better to do than complain; spend your time having fun at an online casino rather than complaining.