William praises ‘inspirational’ Dele Alli for revealing mental health struggles

The Prince of Wales told the footballer in a personal tweet: ‘We’re all with you and we wish you the very best’.
The Prince of Wales expressed his support for footballer Dele Alli after he spoke out about his mental health struggles (Mike Egerton/PA)
PA Wire
Laura Elston13 July 2023

The Prince of Wales has called footballer Dele Alli “brave and inspirational” for speaking out about his mental health struggles, telling him “We’re all with you”.

William shared his message after the Everton midfielder revealed that he had suffered sexual abuse as a child and has battled a sleeping pill addiction, coming out of rehab last month.

In an emotional interview, England international Alli fought back tears as he said he was sexually abused at the age of six and was dealing drugs by the time he was eight.

William, in a personal tweet, wrote: “Brave and inspirational @dele_official.

“Discussing mental health is not a sign of weakness. Let’s keep the conversation going.

“We’re all with you and we wish you the very best. W”

Alli was interviewed by Gary Neville in The Overlap podcast in partnership with Sky Bet.

He laid bare his difficult upbringing before he was adopted by the Hickford family.

William has long campaigned for more openness around mental health, particularly for men, and is passionate about the importance of discussing mental health in football.

The Aston Villa fan, who is president of the Football Association, launched a Heads Up campaign in partnership with the FA in 2020 to use the sport “to spread to message that we all have mental health, just as we all have physical health”.

As part of the drive, Alli featured in a short film the same year, narrated by William, which was played at the start of FA Cup matches to encourage football fans to look after their mental health.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in