This issue is no longer our game’s great TABOO Players’ union aims to banish once and for all stigma attached to mental health
THE CONFIDENTIAL helpline is well used. The posters on dressing room walls, pointing out warning signs and symptoms, might just make all the difference.
If clubs, coaches, administrators and every ‘stakeholder’ in the Scottish game could always do more, at least football has begun to recognise the scale of the problem.
Mental health matters. It’s no longer a taboo subject. And professional athletes are as susceptible as anyone to any variety of illnesses on the spectrum.
In the wake of Leigh Griffiths being given time off to cope with his own very personal issues, it hardly needs saying that he’s far from alone in his plight.
The most recent survey of Scotland’s senior clubs showed that a clear majority — 64 per cent — have at least secondhand experience of mental-health issues.
If they haven’t suffered themselves, they at least know of a team-mate who has been through the mill.
Those numbers are why PFA Scotland now hand out very special business cards on every club visit, each one containing a confidential mobile number — texting is much easier than calling, sometimes — for any footballer facing a crisis.
The scale of the problem is why the players’ union provide those posters intended to guide players towards the right kind of help.
And it explains the thinking behind so many clubs now providing someone outside the coaching team as a sounding board, a safe space for footballers wary of admitting to anything that might affect their career.
Michelle Evans, Head of Wellbeing at PFA Scotland, told Sportsmail: ‘The card we hand out to players has details of a 24-hour phone line, a mobile number that they can call or text.
‘That’s important because it’s still difficult to pick up a phone to someone you don’t know and say: “I’ve got a problem.” Answering that phone will be a doctor trained in mental health, someone who can speak to the player, assess them and refer them for more help.
‘We’ve got counsellors, psychologists, psychiatrists, a whole network of professionals.
‘It is well used. And it’s completely free — and completely confidential. Nothing ever gets back to the club.
‘We did a survey in 2015-16 asking players about what they wanted. And this is based on that consultation.
‘The survey showed that 64 per cent of players were either affected by — or had a team-mate who was affected by — mental-health issues, be that depression, anxiety, gambling addiction or something else.
‘That is quite a scary number. So that is why we put a robust system in place.
‘Players need to know they’ll get sympathy and that there are people willing to help them.
‘We hand a card to every player, there is a poster distributed to be put on every dressing-room wall.
‘Part of this is knowing what signs to recognise. It’s not just depression and suicide. Anxiety, low confidence, relationship problems… when you just can’t cope… it’s not one issue. There is a whole spectrum.’ PFA Scotland work closes with Dr John MacLean and Dr Katy Stewart at Hampden Sports Clinic, both vital cogs in a support network that includes professionals in a variety of specialties. It’s a modern and forward-thinking approach to problems that have always existed — but were rarely, if ever, discussed. It remains incredibly difficult for anyone with mental-health issues to take that first step and seek help. Putting pressure on them to speak up can even be counter-productive. Across the game, however, an increased awareness about how to understand the problems — how to spot symptoms from gambling addiction to alcoholism, eating disorders to depression — is making inroads. Explaining how thinking has changed, Donald MacNaughton — of the Kris Boyd Charity — told Sportsmail: ‘We don’t use a model that says someone is broken. We use a model that asks people where they want to be, gives them some tools to get there, helps them develop resilience. ‘I think football reflects society. And there has been a huge, huge change in the amount that mental health — particularly in men — has been talked about, in society, over just the last two or three years. ‘So that is what football is reflecting now, whereas years ago it would very much have been seen as a weakness, something to be shoved in the cupboard and not talked about.
‘It’s far more acceptable to talk about it now, like any sort of health challenge. But I still think it’s hard for people to talk about, in any walk of life.
‘If I’m a young footballer, a big part of me just wants to get on and play. Anything I think will hamper someone’s perception of me, I’ll be worried about saying anything.
‘What football is good at now is giving people the space — away from coaches — to talk about what’s on their mind, admit they’re not feeling great.
‘They have doctors, wellbeing officers you can speak to in confidence.
‘So clubs are pretty well aware of the challenges. And all clubs want that. They want to look after players as people.’
Attitudes have certainly moved on from the days when any footballer revealed to be suffering from depression would be greeted with widespread scorn.
The old: ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’, argument has long since been dismantled by people with the patience to explain that mental illness can affect anyone.
Football, in fact, may even be one of the more high-risk professions, MacNaughton explaining: ‘Football is different from general life, if we’re talking about a young man living in Scotland, living in Britain just now.
‘They’ve got the potential for all the same mental-health problems as any young man.
‘But what football does is probably opens you up to the potential for things to be amplified.
‘That’s because of the competitive nature of the game, the natural highs and lows of performance — and also because of the social media profile now.
‘I think that all amplifies the mentalhealth challenges that young people have just now. I genuinely think football is really good at dealing with it, though. There is support for young players from quite an early age, right the way through.’
Brendan Rodgers deserves to be lauded for granting Griffiths the breathing space needed to deal with real life. The aim is to spread that kind of thinking throughout the coaching profession.
PFA Scotland CEO chief executive Fraser Wishart revealed yesterday: ‘One of the things we’re going to take to the next step is sitting down with coaches and managers and doing some sort of training for these guys, as well.
‘The situations we’ve found in recent years, the clubs have been terrific.
‘They’ve been a huge support to the players, and that’s of huge help because the last thing somebody who needs help with any kind of issue needs is pressure for their job as well.
‘Clubs now are very much more to the forefront and have been very helpful and supportive.’