The domestic league needs to be improved too, Pevkur, who is also defense minister of Estonia, went on.

The team lost all nine matches it has played this year; just the year before last, things were very different as the team had bagged 10 wins and triumphed in the CEV Volleyball European Silver League. This was crowned by the side being named Estonian sports team of the year, for the first time ever.

So far as the women's volleyball team goes, all the matches for this year have been played, with nothing remained in hand. The situation looks as thin as thin can be. How do you, as the president of the volleyball federation, view this year's results?

The results reflect reality: From the perspective of professionalism with our women's volleyball, it is kind of half-and-half: Nearly half of the team plays in the foreign leagues. Some of them in better clubs, some in not so good clubs, while half of the team still plays at home. This in fact is reflected in the results as well. At home, we do train a lot, we do good work with the women, there are a lot of girls coming up in the youth ranks, but the question is rather whether those bright stars coming up from among the youth are also ready to move out and take the next step, and on that basis to generate a so-called new level rise. The games this summer demonstrated very clearly that if we want to move forward, then we must still get as many players as possible to train at the professional level, whether here at home or by moving into foreign leagues.

It has been stated quite a lot that there are few professional players, but at the same time there have been several seasons where, with only a few professional players, some quite decent victories have been achieved, or at least the playing image has been somewhat different. Has something gone wrong over the past two years with players' motivation, management, or the team's overall atmosphere, so that now there's nothing much left to show?

In terms of atmosphere, I wouldn't worry; I've spoken with the players, spoken with the coaches, and the internal climate of the team is very good. Rather, the question is whether, over the past two or three years, each person has given a little less than they could; for example, if they've come back home and perhaps the training volume has fallen a notch lower, then that 10 percent translates on the court as two, three, or four points, then with that you're at 25:23 or 25:18. We still have to look at the youth pipeline to see whether they will reach and whether they will wish, first, to come to [Tallinn-based sports school] Audentes and do some professional sport, and second, to move on from there abroad.

Once again: Estonian coaches are doing good work, but the main question is that when you've gone abroad, then your sole and primary goal is to do sport, which means you train twice per day; which means you focus only on sport, and other daily life issues perhaps take a back seat. If we look at the wages currently paid in domestic leagues, if indeed there are any, then they are small enough that young people think rather about going to work, getting an education, and from there those everyday life issues come to the fore. If we want to take that next step, then we must look at how players personally could reach a slightly higher, newer level; 10, 20 or 30 percent more effort also serves to raise the level of the national team.

At the same time, if we look back to when we first reached the European Championships, there weren't very many pros there either. Has something in our activities changed after that glorious year of being team of the year, or did the team then simply rely too much on veterans?

In team sports, generations always go up and down. Quite a good younger generation has come along with the men's basketball now. In volleyball too, there were those two squads that played here at the 1999 [junior] World Championships — that is, Toobal, Toobal, Nõmmsalu, Meresaar — that crop actually made the first rise, and then came Täht, Teppan, Aganits. There was a ten-year gap there as well. Generational fluctuations like this inevitably occur in team sports; this should not be taken as something bad, it's simply been historically the same in other countries too. For example, Slovenia's men's volleyball team has been playing essentially with six to eight men for 12–13 years.

I would focus on raising the level of each individual player, and especially through whether those players themselves also wish, after Audentes, to go on and continue the path of a professional athlete, or whether they then choose the path of being in working life, studying somewhere at a university, and then playing volleyball alongside their studies or work.

The success of head coaches and coaches is measured also in wins and in that same motivation. We saw what an Italian head coach was able to do, how many moved abroad, how much more motivated they were: Has the current staff not been able to manage that, or what is your assessment of that?

As head coach, Andres Toobal has certainly done some good work; he has told me, however, that he will not be continuing. His contract has ended as well, and he said that he would not be seeking an extension. The volleyball federation's board will now meet in early September. when we will be discussing how we will move forward. Whether we go for targeted recruitment or announce an open competition.

What can be meant by "good work" when there hasn't been a single win?

Once again: The personal development of players. Andres Toobal was also alongside Lorenzo Micelli, and his development as a coach has in fact been clearly visible. Players, coaches, support staff — all that forms one whole; we cannot take anyone out of that set. It is true that this year there was no success, which does not mean that we should in some way throw in the towel or hang our heads; rather, we look from here to see how it is possible to go forward. But still, if we want the team as a whole to become competitive at the international level, then that actually starts from the clubs below.

The pyramid must rise to the point where from every club, from every age group, we get one or two players who are at an international level and can also play internationally in leagues that are high enough in standard. That would also mean that the so-called laying of the foundation below is such that the work ethic, the work culture is ready and the body is ready to train twice a day, and from there to come into the national team and likewise to work throughout the summer.

Considering that the level of the Estonian domestic league has not risen very high in recent years — perhaps it has improved and become more attractive with the return of several players — that Silver League victory appears then as a sky-blue dream, a one-off flash in the pan, and the bar will again remain in distant times?

This is more broadly also a question of how much money comes into sport at all. If we want to take the domestic league to a new level, then that means that clubs actually get additional finances to bring in one or two legionnaires of decent standard, for example setters, so that the work culture rises a bit. That you can give players the opportunity to do professional sport, so that they don't have to worry about being at work or school in the morning and then at work again, and then having to find time also for training, but so that they can focus professionally on sport.

But we are seeing that unfortunately in women's sport overall — in basketball, volleyball, and football — the amount of money that can be paid to women is so small that girls finishing high school and thinking what to do next, whether to do sport at the professional level or to think about education and work, have rather chosen education and work, because salaries in the labor market have moved so far ahead and sport has not given them the opportunity to earn a sufficient income.

The question is that if we want to make the domestic league stronger, clubs must become more professional, the wallets bigger, then it will be possible to talk about the overall level rising through that.

Hanno Pevkur was also vice-president of the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) in the years 2015–2020

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