• Hollywood Hardman Vinnie Jones delivers emotive team talk here to tackle stigma surrounding mental health 
• Three, Chelsea F.C. and Aware want football fans to #TalkMoreThanFootball  
• Three Ireland extends partnership with Aware mental health charity until 2025

4th April 2024: To encourage football fans to ‘talk more’ with one another, Three Ireland has enlisted former Republic of Ireland captain and former Chelsea footballer Andy Townsend to talk about the importance of speaking out when it comes to mental health. Townsend, who currently works as a football broadcaster, was in Dublin to launch the campaign and announce Three Ireland has extended their partnership with Aware for a further two years.

The #TalkMoreThanFootball campaign which launches today in partnership with Chelsea F.C. and Aware in Ireland, sees Vinnie Jones, a former teammate of Andy Townsend, take over the team talk to deliver a poignant message on mental health. The campaign video premieres at Stamford Bridge Stadium during tonight’s game against Manchester United, to an estimated 44,000 fans.

In the video, current Chelsea players Cole Palmer, Nicolas Jackson, Robert Sanchez and Alfie Gilchrist look set to receive the ‘hair dryer treatment’ from the football legend. Instead, Vinnie candidly uses his own struggles to encourage them to reach out to others and ‘talk more’. The content draws inspiration from a motivational team talk and urges football fans of all ages to prioritise conversations around wellbeing within their social and support networks.

The campaign follows new research of 1,000 Irish football fans commissioned by Three Ireland which found that 56% of football fans have struggled with their mental health, whilst 26% have never spoken to their close circle of friends and family about this. 

But the issue runs deeper than simply spotting when someone is struggling, it also stretches to taking the first steps or finding reasons to reach out. The research found that 43% of fans said that seeing well-known people talk more regularly about mental health would help them do it too. Two-thirds (69%) would like to know how to broach the subject and 54% would like a prompt to talk about it more regularly. Today’s #TalkMoreThanFootball ‘team talk’ serves as a poignant reminder to reach out to friends and loved ones and start that conversation.

Three Ireland concentrates its charity strategy on mental health and having worked very successfully with Aware since 2020, has now extended the partnership for another two years until 2025. Over the course of the partnership, Three’s corporate donations and employee fundraising has provided valuable funding for Aware’s vital support services delivered to individuals and communities throughout Ireland.

Speaking about the campaign Andy Townsend said: “As someone whose job is to spend a lot of time talking about football through my role with TalkSport, I want to take a minute to encourage fans to open up about something more important and reach out and speak to someone about more than football. The changing room has changed since my time and that is a very good thing. That’s why this partnership between Three and Aware is so important and it’s brilliant to see all the vital work being done here locally.”

Aislinn O’Connor, Marketing Director at Three Ireland and Three UK said: “It’s great to have Andy Townsend involved to play his part in this campaign, in addressing the mental health challenges prevalent within the football community and raising awareness of the topic. As a partner to Aware, we see first hand the vital work they undertake and this campaign works so well to deliver the important message that it is OK to talk about how people are feeling. We want to empower them to reach out and use their networks to have meaningful conversations with one another. Whether that’s picking up the phone, sending a message or sharing Vinnie’s team talk, there has never been a better time to ‘talk more than football’.

At Three, our business is all about making connections and we know that connecting with others is so important when dealing with mental health issues so in support of this, we’re also delighted to announce the extension of our partnership with Aware for another two years.”

Clinical Director at Aware, Dr Susan Brannick, added: “Whilst many of us may experience a mental health difficulty over the course of our lifetime, we can still find it difficult to talk about mental health and reach out for help when we need it. A recent Aware survey found that 2 in 5 people struggling with their mental health did not reach out for help because of shame, embarrassment or fear of judgement. An important part of tackling this stigma around mental health is having open and honest conversations and connecting with others for support. Campaigns like this are vital to increase understanding of mental health, equip people with the tools to start those conversations and hopefully work towards normalising speaking about our mental health in the same way we would talk about our physical health.”

Three is encouraging football fans up and down the country to share Vinnie Jones’s ‘team talk’, across their social and support networks to continue to raise awareness of a vital topic. To find out more about #TalkMoreThanFootball and to watch Vinnie’s team talk in full go to Three Ireland’s social channels.

Aware provides a range of free support services for people impacted by anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. See aware.ie or freephone the Aware Support Line on 1800 80 48 48. For more information on the #TalkMoreThanFootball campaign or to support Aware’s work, see link.