Mental health and coping with pressure in professional sports will be among the main topics in the work of the Association of Italian Volleyball Players (AIP) during the 2026/27 season. The organization announced that it is finalizing a European project in which current and former athletes will talk about psychological pressure and their personal experiences.
AIP's work in this direction began in August with "Tackle Your Feelings Europe" - an initiative co-financed by the Erasmus+ program and coordinated by the European Athletes & Players Associations (EAPA). Through an anonymous survey among athletes, information is collected about their psychological state, performance stress, and the problems they face in professional sports.
The topic was also discussed at the EAPA General Assembly near Helsinki at the end of September, where attention was also paid to the impact of the busy international calendar on the physical and psychological condition of athletes.
At its meeting on September 29, the AIP management outlined the next step - video materials and personal testimonies of current and former male and female volleyball players, through which the problems of mental health and competitive pressure will gain greater public awareness.
Almost at the same time, the topic also received a Bulgarian interpretation.
Former national team player Boyan Yordanov, who ended his competitive career after the end of last season, announced that the next step in his professional path will be related to sports psychology. Yordanov has a master's degree in "Sports Psychology" from the National Sports Academy "Vasil Levski" and, together with Prof. Yulian Karabiberov, is starting work in the field of psychological counseling for athletes.
For the long-time national team player, this is a topic that has occupied him since his active career.
"As an athlete at the highest level, I myself know how important the psychological preparation of an athlete is. It has always been interesting to me; I educated myself during my career. That's why I completed this specialization," Yordanov explained when presenting the initiative.
Prof. Karabiberov, who has been working with Boyan Yordanov since 2007, placed psychological preparation alongside the other main elements in an athlete's development.
"Head coaches prepare them technically and tactically, we physically, but it is the psyche that will actually bring everything to 100% on the field and court. That's why I believe that psychological preparation is an important element of an athlete's overall integral preparation," commented Karabiberov.
There is no organizational connection between Boyan Yordanov's initiative and AIP's work. However, the timing coincidence shows the same trend - psychological preparation is increasingly finding its place alongside physical, technical, and tactical work with athletes.