Day 3 of the FLAME conference

Speaker line-up day 3

Prof. Dr. Vincent Gouttebarge

Prof. Vincent Gouttebarge is a former professional footballer who played 14 seasons in France and The Netherlands (232 games; twice ACLR; twice concussion). He is Extraordinary Professor at the Section Sports Medicine of the University of Pretoria. He is also staff member at the Orthopaedic Surgery department of the Amsterdam University Medical Centers and Chief Medical Officer at FIFPRO (Football Players Worldwide).

“Striving to protect and promote the physical, mental and social health of active and former professional athletes”
Prof. Gouttebarge’s work focusses on a wide range of sports medicine domains being relevant in professional sports (emphasis on football), striving to protect and promote the physical, mental and social health of active and former professional athletes. He is Chair of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Mental Health Working Group, co-Director of the IOC Programs on Mental Health in Elite Sport, member of the Concussion Expert Group of the International Football Association Board (The IFAB), and member of the Medical Expert Group of the French Professional Football League (LFP). Prof. Gouttebarge is also member of the Editorial Board of the South African Journal of Sports Medicine and Injury Epidemiology.

Dr. Vana Hutter

Vana is the coordinator of the Erasmus+ project FLAME, Flourish in and beyond the gAME. She is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

“Football can be a fantastic training ground for life skills. It is important to help academies optimally support the mental health and psychosocial development of their players.”
Dr Vana Hutter is one of the founders of the post-graduate program in applied sport psychology at the VU Amsterdam. As such, she was responsible for the training of the modern generation of sport psychologists in the Netherlands. Vana believes that sport, including elite sport context such as football, can be a fantastic training ground for life skills. It is important to help academies optimally support the mental health and psychosocial development of their players. It is her aim to do so in an evidence-based manner, bridging the gap between the knowhow from research and the needs in practice.

Dr. Maximilian Pelka

Max is the team psychologist of RB Leipzig’s first team since 2017. 

"Works with players and coaching staff at RB Leipzig and in addition supports the club’s scouting and research departments."
Before his time at RB Leipzig, he worked as an academy sport psychologist at Fortuna Düsseldorf, and was a member of the Managing Council of the European Network of Young Specialists in Sport Psychology for four years. Alongside his practical work Max obtained a PhD in sport psychology from Ruhr University Bochum in which his research focused on psychological relaxation techniques in sports.