Wigan Warriors raised £16,500 for the Rob Burrow Fund after 30 embroidered home shirts were sold via the club’s Community Foundation eBay page.
On Sunday 16th August, Wigan played Leeds Rhinos in Round 9 of the Betfred Super League and every Wigan player wore a special embroidered shirt in support of Leeds legend Burrow.
All the players from the Warriors’ first-team squad chose a word to describe Burrow – who was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in December 2019 – and the 17 players who featured against Leeds adorned their chosen word alongside their name on the Wigan home shirt.
The shirts that were worn by the players in the game, as well as jerseys of the first-team players who were not involved in the matchday squad, were all up for auction on the Foundation’s eBay account.
Four of the 30 shirts were re-auctioned in a new round of bidding last week after the original bidders withdrew.
Ebay also supported the cause by agreeing to waive their auction fees for all 30 shirts.
“Wigan Warriors would like to thank everyone who placed genuine winning bids for their amazing generosity in helping to raise funds for Rob and to eBay for their assistance in boosting the final total,” said a Wigan club statement.
Wigan Warriors executive director, Kris Radlinski, said: “Raising this amount of money for Rob is truly humbling for everybody involved but the reason we wanted to do something in the way we did, was so we could all let Rob know what people think of him.
“The intrinsic effect of this campaign is far more important than the money to Rob at this time. Knowing that people think so much of him will fill his heart full of love. That’s what life is about.”
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