London Wasps Announces New Official Charity Partner

June 12, 2012

English Rugby club London Wasps has announced that Mind will become the Club’s Official Charity Partner for the next two years.

As the leading mental health charity in England and Wales, Mind provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem, as well as campaigning to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding of mental health.

London Wasps and Mind aim to work closely together over the next two years with a range of common objectives.

In a strong show of the significance of the partnership, the Mind logo will feature on all shirts worn by the London Wasps players this season.

The Club aims to help increase the awareness of Mind’s fantastic work as well as supporting its major fundraising efforts, while at the same time playing a key role in improving the understanding of mental health issues among staff, players, supporters and the wider rugby community.

Thanks to support from two of London Wasps’ current Club partners –Kukri Sports and Creative Print Group – a proportion of programme and shirt sales from four dedicated games throughout the season will be donated to the charity, who will run fundraising activities at these games.

London Wasps Chairman Mark Rigby said: “This is a hugely worthwhile partnership over the next two years. Mental health has become an important topic in sport in recent years and while we will be working hard to promote the wider work of Mind, we want to play a key role in raising awareness of the importance of the psychological wellbeing of rugby players.”

Mind Chief Executive Paul Farmer said: “I’m delighted that we will be working with London Wasps for the next two years. This partnership reflects the relevant and current issue of mental health in sport, following recent disclosures from people like Andrew Flintoff, Ricky Hatton and rugby’s own Duncan Bell about their experiences of depression. This will provide us with an incredible opportunity to raise awareness of mental health problems, and of the work that Mind does, throughout the rugby community.”