MENTAL HEALTH AND PERFORMANCE IN FOOTBALL
Psychological performance support for players, squads and clubs, built in football's own language.
Delivering at the Premier League’s Heads of Education conference
Football Mental Health Consultancy, delivered by a former professional footballer turned therapist
Football develops extraordinary athletes. It does not always develop psychologically whole human beings. The pressures, cultures, and emotional demands of professional sport create conditions that are uniquely difficult to navigate, and most players are never given the tools to do so.
Kevin George is a BACP registered therapist and former professional footballer who played for West Ham United and Charlton Athletic. He is the author of Soccology, a football encyclopaedic book on mental health, culture, and leadership, based on research involving 45 professional footballers and three coaches. He has spent over two decades working at the intersection of elite sport and mental health.
Kevin George provides mental health support and psychoeducation to players, coaches, academies, and clubs across the Premier League and internationally, including Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, and Hull City. His work is grounded in clinical training in psychodynamic, Jungian, systemic, and attachment based therapy, and shaped by firsthand experience of professional football.
What separates his approach is fit. Football has its own language, hierarchy, and unwritten rules. Mental health support that ignores this rarely lands. Kevin George delivers support that works within the culture of football rather than against it, so players, staff, and parents engage with it rather than resist it.
Delivery at Manchester United FC
Delivery at Liverpool FC
One to One Support for Players
Confidential, individual support for players navigating the mental and emotional demands of the game.
Behind performance, there's a person managing pressure, setbacks, and transitions that rarely get spoken about. This service offers individual therapy and performance psychology sessions for professional, semi-professional, and academy players, in person or remotely. Sessions provide a confidential space to explore mental health challenges, manage performance pressure, build resilience, and navigate transitions including injury, career endings, and identity beyond the game. Tailored to each player's developmental stage, cultural background, and goals.
What Sessions Cover
Managing performance pressure and competitive anxiety
Building emotional resilience and coping strategies
Navigating injury, deselection, and career transitions
Exploring identity and self-worth beyond football
Support tailored to age, culture, and individual goals
Who It's For: Professional, semi-professional, and academy players seeking a confidential space to work through the mental and emotional side of their career.
Format: Ongoing 1:1 sessions last 50 minutes and cost £130 each, available in person or online, with online sessions booked through the button below and face to face sessions arranged by making an enquiry here.
Team and Academy Psychoeducation
Structured mental health and emotional intelligence programmes, built in the language of football.
Players engage more when the approach speaks their language rather than asking them to step outside it. This service delivers structured psychoeducation programmes for senior squads and academies, aligned with the Elite Player Performance Plan across Foundation (U9–U11), Youth Development (U12–U16), and Professional Development (U17–U23) phases. Sessions build emotional intelligence, resilience, and mental health awareness using football culture as the bridge, not a barrier.
What the Programme Covers
Emotional intelligence and resilience building
Mental health awareness embedded in football language and culture
Content aligned to EPPP developmental phases
Performance anxiety, confidence and state of mind
Pressure, stress and self regulation
Practical, engaging delivery designed for squad and group settings
Who It's For: Senior squads and academies wanting a mental health and wellbeing programme players actually connect with.
Format: Sessions last 90 minutes and deliver structured emotional intelligence and mental health programmes for squads and academies, aligned to EPPP phases and built in football's own language, at £450 per session.
““The players were fully engaged and staff commented afterwards that we should run more programmes like this for the players, which isn’t the reaction we always get.” ”
Staff development training at Hull City FC
U21 Player delivery at Stoke City FC
Staff Training and Consultancy
Equipping club and academy staff to recognise, respond to, and support player wellbeing and performance at every level.
Coaches, education leads, welfare officers, and support staff are often the first to notice when something isn't right with a player, yet rarely trained to know what to do next. This service delivers specialist training in mental health, performance health, player care, and safeguarding, helping staff see the player as a whole person and embedding wellbeing as everyday practice, not crisis response. Drawing on clinical experience as a psychotherapist and firsthand insight as a former professional footballer, it bridges football culture with psychological understanding.
What the Training Covers
Recognising signs of mental health concerns and responding appropriately
Understanding players' emotional and social needs across developmental stages
Building safeguarding awareness and confident escalation
Embedding sustainable wellbeing practice into everyday club culture
Practical tools for conversations around performance pressure and player care
Who It's For: Coaches, education leads, welfare officers, and support staff at clubs and academies wanting to strengthen player care as a core part of their culture.
Track Record: Previous football clients and partners include Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Hull City, the Premier League, Kick It Out, and clubs and academies across the UK and internationally.
Format: Support is available as part of staff training days (90 minute session at £450), ongoing consultancy (packages to be discussed) or embedded work, all tailored to your setting.
Consultancy for Football Parents
Helping parents understand, support, and strengthen their child's wellbeing on and off the pitch.
Behind every player is a parent trying to get it right, encouraging without overloading, pushing without breaking. This service helps parents understand what's really happening in their child's inner world as they navigate football, and how to support their wellbeing and performance without adding to the pressure they already carry. Drawing on family therapy and firsthand experience as a former professional footballer and researcher, it bridges elite football culture and the psychology of the family system around the young player.
What the Consultancy Covers
Understanding your child's emotional experience of pressure, identity, and belonging
Responding to setbacks and non-selection in ways that build resilience, not shame
How to engage with your child regarding performance
Recognising early signs of burnout, performance anxiety, or disengagement
Managing your own expectations and fears as a parent, and how your child picks up on them
Supporting identity beyond football, so self-worth isn't solely tied to performance
Who It's For: Parents and guardians of children in grassroots, academy, or elite pathway football who want to be a stabilising presence in their child's journey.
Track Record: Delivered to parents across the Premier League and English Football League on behalf of the Premier League.
Format: Available as 1:1 consultations, family sessions, or group workshops for clubs and academies. Specify enquiry via button below.
CASE STUDY: Gennaro Negro (AS Roma)
Kevin worked with AS Roma player Gennaro Negro on performance anxiety. Applying neuro-linguistic programming and person centred frameworks to help the player understand and manage his environmental stressors, psychological pressures of elite football and uncertainty.
CASE STUDY: Europe's Top U18 Players – Stress Exploration
Kevin conducted in-depth exploratory work on stress with five of Europe's top U18 players, examining how young elite athletes experience, interpret, and respond to pressure at a critical stage of their psychological and sporting development.
CASE STUDY: Gaël Clichy – Leadership & Paris Olympics
Kevin worked with former Arsenal and Manchester City left-back Gaël Clichy on leadership development, drawing on Clichy's elite career experience to explore the psychological dimensions of leading in high-performance environments in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics.
(FAQ) Frequently asked questions about Kevin George’s mental health in football and sports psychology work.
How does Kevin George help professional footballers with mental health?
Kevin provides individual therapy, performance psychology sessions, and team psychoeducation for footballers at all levels, using a clinical model grounded in his own experience as a professional player.
What is the Elite Player Performance Plan and how does Kevin George's work align with it?
The EPPP is the Premier League's framework for academy player development. Kevin's psychoeducation programmes are structured to align with its welfare and education requirements across Foundation, Youth Development, and Professional Development phases.
Why do professional footballers struggle with mental health?
Kevin George's research and clinical practice show that football culture actively discourages emotional expression, creating environments where players suppress psychological distress. His book Soccology explores this in depth through interviews with 45 professional players.