It is an industry better known for exorbitant wages and rip-off prices than philanthropy.

However, one leading Premier League football club has bucked the trend to maximise every money-making opportunity. It will be carrying the name of a local charity on its shirts next season rather than a commercial sponsor.

Under a 12-month deal, Aston Villa will be promoting Acorns Children’s Hospice, the leading provider of end-of-life care for young people in the Midlands area.

For the club, it represents a far more serious approach to corporate social responsibility than in the past. By Villa’s own admission, fundraising for good causes had been a bit ad hoc until now, although over the last two years the relationship with Acorns has become more serious.

The club has raised more than £100,000 through payroll giving (regular donations given directly from people’s salaries) and bucket shakes, enough to pay for 230 beds at the cost of £450 a day. Players had become regular visitors to the Selly Oak Acorns, one of its three hospices.

But the decision to forgo at least £2 million in sponsorship to promote the hospice is a radical step. The idea came last Christmas when the club was in negotiations with prospective sponsors. The existing three-year deal with 32Red, the online gaming company, had come to an end.

Duncan Riddle, head of community at Aston Villa, said that the club “had a feeling that there was more we could be doing with Acorns”.

Putting the charity on its shirts was a more high-profile way to back Acorns and was also an effective way to engage with fans. “The fans are mostly local and this is a big local cause,” he said. “Having their name on our shirts suddenly seemed like a really good idea.”

Senior management at the club was immediately supportive of the idea, but money was a big obstacle. Sponsorship is a major source of money for football clubs — a reliable source of revenue over several years regardless of the club’s performance — so giving it up would leave a big hole in the budget.

“We had to go to the financial controller to make our case and ask if we could take this hit,” Mr Riddle recounted. The club’s controller ended up giving them permission to proceed after working out that the deal would not affect their ability to pay transfer fees or buy players, he said.

The sponsorship deal will generate a huge amount of publicity for the trust. Every time Villa play, thousands of fans will see the name, along with millions more tuning into Match of the Day at the weekend.

But given the perilous state of funding for children’s charities, would it not have been more sensible to ask Villa to go ahead with a commercial sponsor and take the cash instead?