Pep Guardiola and Ralf Rangnick lend support to suicide prevention campaign

Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has teamed up with the League Managers Association to launch a new partnership supporting a suicide prevention campaign.

The Shine A Light On Suicide campaign, which aims to prevent suicide, started in 2019 in Greater Manchester.

Suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 49 and women aged between 20-34 and one in five people have thought about suicide at once in their life.

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Speaking in a video on his Youtube channel Andy Burnham has described the campaign as “groundbreaking”, adding: “We empower people to have that difficult conversation with somebody they love or somebody they know. Just one conversation can make all the difference.”

Gareth Southgate, Ralf Rangnick, Pep Guardiola, and Wayne Rooney are all part of the campaign as well as numerous other managers. The campaign has now been rolled out into a national campaign, following its success in the Greater Manchester area.

“Phase one was really successful,” said Richard Bevan, the chief executive of the LMA. “Now it will involve men, women, managers and coaches from all around the country to promote the website for the zero suicide alliance training programme which we want to have the same impact nationally as we had in Manchester.”

LMA president and England manager Gareth Southgate has said the training programme was educational. He said: "You may stop someone at moment where they are thinking of suicide and I think very often people think they’re not valued and what they’re feeling is something nobody else is interested in.

“Whether you know someone or somebody you are meeting for the first time, you might have a greater impact