Will Vaulks: "Turning awareness into action saves lives"

About the author
Tranmere Rovers midfielder Will Vaulks won the 2025 FIFPRO Player Voice Award for suicide prevention and encouraging meaningful discourse around mental health and bereavement. Through the funding secured by winning the FIFPRO award, Vaulks held an impactful community workshop on suicide prevention with important takeaways when at former club Oxford United. 

By Will Vaulks

There are moments in football that stay with you forever: goals, wins, promotions. But some of the most important moments don’t happen on the pitch at all. They happen in rooms where people feel safe enough to speak. Or, just as importantly, where they realise they don’t have to stay silent anymore.

When I won the FIFPRO Player Voice Award last year, I knew I had to use it properly. The funding that came with it wasn’t about recognition. It was about responsibility. 

From the very beginning, I was clear: I didn’t want the money to disappear into a general pot. I wanted it to go somewhere tangible. Something real. Something that could genuinely help people. That’s how our suicide prevention training event came about earlier this year. 

Funded by FIFPRO, we created a workshop at my former club Oxford United which brought together 150 supporters, staff, players and the wider community. It wasn’t just about listening to a talk and going home. That’s where so many initiatives fall short.

Instead, we built something with purpose.

I shared my story about football, about the ups and downs, about the reality behind the game. The parts people don’t always see. The social media abuse. The pressure. The personal experiences that shape you. I spoke about resilience not simply being a buzzword, but something that comes from real connections, learned skills and support systems.

Then the charity we partnered with provided the clinical side: explaining anxiety, depression and how to spot the signs. And crucially, everyone who attended didn’t just leave with awareness. They left with access to a 40-minute online suicide prevention training course. It’s simple and something people can complete in their own time, without needing to take a day off work or commit to long in-person sessions.

After all, awareness without action isn’t enough.

This matters more than ever. Suicide remains the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK. That’s a fact that should stop all of us in our tracks.

And yet, one of the biggest misconceptions is still the same: ‘You would never have guessed’. I hear that all the time. People assume it’s the quiet ones, the visibly struggling ones. But often, it’s the opposite. The loudest. The happiest. The ones always joking. The ones who seem fine.

That’s why this work matters. It’s about changing how we look at each other. It’s about asking not just “How are you?” – but “How are you really?”

The most powerful moment of that event came from Ryan, Oxford United’s Head of Media. We’ve worked together on the Can We Talk? campaign for a long time. But during that workshop, he stood up and spoke about losing a close friend to suicide. It was something he had carried privately for years.

He later told us he hadn’t fully processed it at the time. That he’d pushed it down, focused on helping others and moved on without dealing with his own grief. It was only through this work – through learning, listening and being around vulnerability – that he found the space to understand it, and finally speak about it.

That moment said everything. Because this isn’t just about helping strangers; it’s about helping the people next to you. The ones you think are fine. The ones you don’t realise are carrying something.

If someone involved in the campaign can find their voice through it, then we’re doing something right.

The funding didn’t stop at one night. It allowed us to take this work further into schools, into workplaces. It’s helping us provide training to more people, in more environments, where it can genuinely make a difference.

Even if only a fraction engages, it still means hundreds of people are better equipped to spot signs, start conversations and potentially save lives. Because this work doesn’t need millions to make an impact. It just needs commitment, consistency and the willingness to act.

And football needs to act. In my opinion, the footballing community is not doing enough when it comes to suicide prevention. Football clubs have young men and women in their care; I would like to see clubs properly support players’ mental health through the likes of Can We Talk?. What is currently in place at Oxford United to support players is transferrable to all clubs.

People sometimes ask what success looks like with something like this. It’s not headlines. It’s not awards. It’s the moments you don’t see. It’s the team-mate who finally opens up. The supporter who checks on a mate. The person who realises they’re not alone – and so chooses to speak.

If what happened in my life – if the loss my family experienced – can lead to even one person being helped, then that’s something I have to keep going with. It doesn’t make the past easier. But it gives it purpose.

That’s the payoff. And that’s why the support from FIFPRO didn’t just fund an event. It helped start something that can keep growing conversation by conversation, person by person.

Because sometimes, the most important thing you can do is simply ask: can we talk?