Why the Championship playoff final will kick off one minute late | OneFootball

The three EFL play-off finals will all start a minute later than standard to raise awareness of CPR and Sky Bet and the British Heart Foundation’s ‘Every Minute Matters’ campaign.

The campaign, which began during last season’s play-offs, is encouraging 360,000 people to use the British Heart Foundation’s online RevivR tool and to start learning CPR by the culmination of the football season with the play-off finals.

It has already surpassed its target of teaching 270,000 people - three times the capacity of Wembley Stadium - to learn CPR.

The symbolic time of each kickoff aims to highlight how every minute matters when administering life-saving treatment.

The chances of survival after a cardiac arrest decrease by 10 per cent for every minute that passes without effective CPR or defibrillation.

To mark this, the Championship play-off final between Sheffield United and Sunderland will begin at 3.01pm on Saturday, 24 May, with the League One play-off between Charlton Athletic and Leyton Orient kicking off at 1.01pm on Sunday, 25 May and the League Two play-off between Wimbledon and Walsall at 3.01pm on Monday, 26 May.

Vinnie Jones will lead a demonstration of CPR in front of an expected crowd of more than 80,000 at Wembley this weekend, and will be joined on the pitch by Tom Lockyer at half-time.

The Luton Town captain suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the pitch two years ago during his side’s play-off final win over Coventry City, and was later fitted with an ICD.

Lockyer, an ambassador for the BHF, said: “I was just one of the more than 30,000 people who suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest every year in the UK. I am lucky to be alive today, but the reality is that less than 1 in 10 people usually survive, which is why it’s vital that we continue to raise awareness. The symbolic kick off times are the perfect way to make our lifesaving message impossible to ignore.

“Over the course of the last year, the EFL community – fans, players and the clubs – have come together and united behind the Sky Bet Every Minute Matters campaign to achieve something I never thought possible.

“And now, as we approach the business end of the season, the Sky Bet Play-Off Finals provide an incredible platform to continue to spread the word and bring the curtain down on a game changing year in the fight against cardiac arrest."