Former Rangers player and manager Graeme Souness has shown support for a Rangers charity partnership.
The football icon is urging football fans to look after their heart health as he backed a partnership between the Ranger Foundation and the British Heart Foundation Scotland (BHFS).
During the 2023/24 season, the charity pledged to raise £25,000 for BHFS.
It will also help raise awareness of heart and circulatory diseases, which are some of the nation’s biggest killers, causing around 50 deaths each day, and are estimated to affect 700,000 people in Scotland.
This comes ahead of World Heart Day on September 29.
Graeme Souness has personal experience of heart disease and understands first-hand how important the lifesaving research the BHFS helps to fund is.
He said: “I was diagnosed with coronary heart disease at 38 and had a triple bypass. When I was diagnosed, I was extremely fit. I never thought I’d be the type of person to get heart disease, but if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.
“Ten years later, I had a stent fitted as another one of my arteries had become blocked. Then in November 2015, I was rushed to hospital after suffering a heart attack at home.
“Thankfully, I’m now OK, but without the research, the BHF has helped fund into heart and circulatory diseases, it could have been a different story.”
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The partnership will also encourage at least 50,000 people, the capacity of Ibrox Stadium, to learn lifesaving CPR via the BHFS’s free online tool, RevivR.
David McColgan, Head of British Heart Foundation Scotland commented: “We’re delighted the Rangers Charity Foundation has chosen BHF Scotland as its national charity partner for the season.
“Heart and circulatory diseases are some of Scotland’s biggest killers and we hope this partnership will help us raise awareness in Scotland’s footballing community about the importance of looking after your heart health, while also enabling more people to learn lifesaving CPR skills and raise an incredible amount of money for the British Heart Foundation.”
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