Can perfectionism Reduce Football Players’ Stress and Athletic Burnout?

Football withdrawal has always created many psychological problems for players and it has had destructive effects on their health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of perfectionism on the reduction stress and athletic burnout in football players. The statistical population of this study included all football players at youth level in Guilan, Iran. 378 players were selected as a sample size through random sampling method. A combination of valid and reliable standard questionnaires was distributed to collect the research data. Research hypotheses were analyzed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and linear regression. The SPSS software (version 24) was used for data analysis (α≤0.05). The results showed that there was a significant correlation between athletic burnout and positive perfectionism (-0.622), negative perfectionism (0.555), problem-oriented strategy (-0.358), and emotion-oriented strategy (0.401). According the results of this study, developing efficient plans with focusing on the psychological variables of perfectionism, stress, and athletic burnout can improve the coaches’ awareness of coaching behaviors as well as increasing athletes’ optimal mental performance and efficiency.