Arteta praises No More Red's volunteers

Mikel Arteta has paid tribute to the volunteers who have helped make our No More Red campaign so successful over the past four years.

We will once again be wearing an all-white kit for Sunday’s FA Cup third-round clash against Manchester United to help raise awareness of the campaign which aims to keep young people safe from knife crime and youth violence. The kit will never be available to buy and will only ever be awarded to individuals who are making a positive difference in the community.

The work behind No More Red builds on 40 years of work by Arsenal in the Community and is focused on three key pillars: investing in safe spaces to play football, providing ongoing opportunities for connection and championing community role models, and Mikel used his pre-match press conference to heap praise on all those helping to make a difference in young people’s lives.

“The campaign is great because we have so many people who put in so much effort, putting their lives to try to improve the quality in so many people’s lives by creating safe spaces and safe environments,” he said.

“When we get an opportunity to highlight that on such a big occasion, we have to do it, so well done to the club, well done to everybody that is participating in that because they put so much effort into it and the impact is huge.”

It may be a strange sight seeing us play at Emirates Stadium not donning our usual red and white colours, especially against a traditional rival in the Red Devils.

However Mikel feels that it is something worth changing to help the campaign make as much impact as possible, with the world watching the two most successful teams in the competition’s history go head-to-head.

On if it makes a difference not wearing red, he added: “It does change, it’s not something that we are used to, but I think it’s for the right reason, the right motive. Let’s use it in the right way.”