GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

and, of course, again it is back to that old thing: How does a footballer who is

fabulously wealthy and earns tremendous amounts of money end up in this

predicament? Of course, poor mental health does not choose the status, the

wealth, the success of who it affects. Fortunately, the PFA, as the fantastic

union it is, we have been very active in this area for 13 or 14 years, particularly

since the death of one of our most esteemed members, of course, Gary Speed.

It shocked the world really that poor mental health can affect someone who had

seemingly everything. Last year in 2016 we lost a female footballer, Zoe

Tynan, 18 years old. She played for Everton and Manchester City. We have

had very well known cases – Paul Gascoigne, former England fullback, Kenny

Samson. We like to advertise and we like to produce case study after case

study of players that we support, members of ours who we support, but, of

course, there is that thing called client confidentiality. We have to keep it most

of the time on the downlow to protect their wishes.

Of course, poor mental health is not solely a problem for the Musicians Union,

it is not solely amongst professional football, it is a society issue. That being

said, a recent study from Loughborough University, I believe, has highlighted

over 640 more causes of anxiety amongst elite athletes. We do quite a bit of

work with our brothers and sisters at the PCA. Of course, in cricket they have

this thing called Wisden, a league table of basically those who are good and

those who are shit. You can imagine the anxiety, the stresses that that causes

and they do have a high occurrence of people taking their own life in cricket.

We spoke a lot on the agenda about education. Education is at the core of

what we do as a union, all of us, but we must be reminded that you cannot

move forward in education, in transition, in our case, from football to another

career, if your member is in a poor state of mental health. It means nothing to

their education. We fully support the motion. (Applause)

Motion 9 was CARRIED unanimously

THE PRESIDENT: That brings us to the conclusion of the business we were going to

deal with today. There are a couple of things I just need to announce. Firstly,

anyone who took a book on the Kurdish situation and wants to make a

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