The city of Antwerp has recognised No Blockers as an official sports club of the municipality. As such, No Blockers joins a network of more than 350 clubs in the city and commits to keep fulfilling the requirements for this label.
What does this recognition mean?
For No Blockers, being recognized as an “erkende sportclub” by Stad Antwerpen is an acknowledgment that our club meets the city’s standards for a safe, well-run sporting environment, including criteria such as a verified safety scan and a meaningful presence in Antwerp. This recognition also makes the club eligible for the city’s sport subsidies, which cover everything from basic funding and participation support to sports-technical development, equipment, and infrastructure grants. This makes it easier for us to grow and welcome more players to the first international volleyball club of Antwerp. It’s a milestone that reflects the hard work of everyone involved in building our club, and a strong foundation for what comes next.
What’s next?
No Blockers will proudly display this quality label across our communication channels and will continue to meet — and where possible exceed — the requirements of the recognition. The recognition is valid for 2 years and No Blockers intends to renew it afterward. We’re grateful to the Sportservice team of the City of Antwerp for making this label possible and for supporting us throughout the process. Antwerp is our homebase and as the first international volleyball club of the city, we continue to be a meeting point, place of exchange and integration for all people.
No Blockers organises their first tournament as a club on August 8th, 2026. A total of 14 teams will be admitted to the matches that will take place in Sporthal Fort 8 in Antwerp. Here is all you need to know about the event.
Why this tournament is special
Next to the event being our first tournament as a club, we have arranged referees for the matches so that competing teams do not need to provide one. Furthermore, the matches take 25 minutes and teams will get a lot of playtime with the only long break being the lunch break. Sporthal Fort 8 itself is special because it hosts a centre court, where the grand finals will be played on. Preparations are already on the way to organise personalised trophies, generous lunch packages and volunteers. Our volunteers will be working hard to keep track of the administrative side of the tournament, take photos, do interviews and be the referees.
Join us!
This is an excellent opportunity to challenge and test your team’s strength, endurance and performance levels in a competitive environment before the 2026/27 season kicks off in September. To join the tournament, you can simply click or tap the link below and register your team. Note that one woman needs to be on the court all the time and that your team will be insured through No Blockers’ sports insurance for worry-free play!
June 10, 2026 | Club development | ~2min read time
No Blockers vzw and TALENTA+ Foundation have entered a strategic partnership for the competitive season 2026-2027. The duration of the agreement is set to one year but can be prolonged.
About Talenta+
TALENTA+ is a sports management and strategy organisation headed by Tawfeek Zen Alabden. Its professionals have more than 15 years of experience in tailoring competition and training strategies to the needs and demands of sports clubs. TALENTA+’s motto is: everyone has a talent that can be nurtured through fun and performance.
No Blockers supports their players and wants to offer real and sustainable growth opportunities to all individuals to build strong and successful competitors. Talenta+ will develop training plans for No Blockers based on state-of-the-art sports science and individual as well as team performance insights. Furthermore, they will co-organise tournaments and help us promote volleyball towards people from diverse backgrounds. With this move, we professionalise our trainings allowing for more structure and strategy. The specifics of the training and competition plans and procedures around will be discussed in July and shared internally.
Partners with a higher purpose
Rooted in Antwerp, Talenta+ is an excellent local partner with a vast network in the sports sector and clear societal mission: to offer inclusion and integration of newcomers through sports. Given our own origin story, No Blockers backs up this approach and commits to supporting Talenta+ with available resources.
The strategic partnership agreement is signed. From left to right: Luka Paul Vethake (treasurer No Blockers), Tawfeek Zen Alabden (Founder TALENTA+), Sohel Zin Alaabidin, chairman No Blockers vzw)
As of season 2026-27, No Blockers will hold teams in the Sporta and Volley Vlaanderen leagues. One men’s team will advance to Sporta 3A, while a men’s and a women’s team will start a new chapter in the second and third Volley Antwerpen league, respectively, which are both managed by Volley Vlaanderen.
What this means for our club
We have said it from the beginning: No Blockers is here to stay and grow. With this move, we claim new territory and introduce our play, our story and mission to a new audience. Our players have played an immaculate season and it is only fair to offer them growth perspectives. We want the best for each player and playing against opponents that are on a higher level is the best way to learn. So far, we have been confined to the borders of the city of Antwerp. With this step, we extend our circle of influence to the Province of Antwerp.
No Blockers is officially welcoming sponsors for the next season and beyond. This is a big step for No Blockers as we are approaching the next season. What can expect sponsors from us, what do we expect from them? The board has put together a short overview.
What kind of sponsors are we looking for?
At this stage, we are looking for main sponsors who can support our club on a large scale, from sports activities to quartermaster and recurring expenses like booking fields. Next to this, we can also accommodate more specific sponsorship. You are a multimedia company? We could use your hardware to record our matches. You are a food brand? We’d love to use your products during tough matches! There are hundreds of use cases where we are open to see together with you what kind of sponsorship works best for both of us.
In the meantime, you can find more information and a short leaflet on this page:
At No Blockers, we value an active relationship and reciprocal interest. We plan to organise a Network & Sponsorship Event (NSE) once a year where sponsors have the opportunity to secure a speaking slot and network their way through the club and fellow sponsors. Next to that, we welcome every sponsor to our matches to support us and see the progress our teams and club make in action and first-hand.
What does No Blockers offer in return?
Good to know: in Belgium, sponsorship expenses are to a varying extent deductible for a BV or NV at tax declaration. We will provide sponsors with an invoice and detailed contract. Sponsoring is a win-win situation, really. For a small amount, sponsors unlock all the benefits associated with No Blockers:
Multi-channel brand exposure to diverse audiences in the Antwerp province and beyond;
Networking, co-branding and other CSR or PR initiatives and activities;
Access to young, international talent in the vibrant and large expat community of Antwerp;
…and many more exclusive sponsor perks!
The specifics of the contract are subject to change and negotiation, of course.
What do you need to do to become a sponsor?
Interested? Great! Reach out to our board at info@no-blockers.be or via +32486267744. We will happily meet with you to introduce No Blockers and discuss the contract.
Everything has an origin. The story of No Blockers, Antwerp’s first international volleyball club, begins thousands of kilometres away in Homs, Syria, where our founder Sohel Zin Alaabidin lived the first part of his life. This is the story of the first No Blocker; this is our story.
The past shapes the present
I inherited the passion for volleyball from my father. My father was a volleyball player at Al Karama Club, Al Karama Club, one of the most historic and successful sport clubs in Syria. Founded in Homs in 1928, Al Karama built a long legacy through numerous national titles and generations of athletes who represented the club across different sports, especially volleyball. My father regularly took me with him to the men’s training sessions from a young age not to watch, but to train.
Left: My father playing for Al Karama Volleyball Club in Homs, Syria Right: Al Karama Club logo
At the age of 14, I officially began playing with the men’s team, alongside my father. Looking back at our time at Al Karama, I sometimes wonder how far that path could have gone under different circumstances.
Receiving my first medal as a volleyball player
But with the beginning of the 2011 Syrian war, everything changed in an instant. The fields were closed and daily life itself became unstable. Everything that happened during and after that war completely changed the course of our lives.
During that period, I started discovering who I was outside the sports halls. At the time, I had two options: either I would side with the dictatorship and take up arms against my own people, or I would join the resistance and carry a weapon as needed defence. It was then that I realized I did not want to carry a weapon at all, no matter the reason. Instead, I chose to work with the Red Cross and carried out more than 600 missions, working on the ground to help people.
With Red Cross colleagues in Homs, 2012
I faced countless situations that nearly killed me, including a serious injury that left me close to death. I barely escaped but injured my shoulder and my thigh. Yet, after all those years, I was still ordered to immediately report for military service.
This is when I knew that I had to leave Syria. I left everything and set out to cross the sea, not knowing if I would reach a place where I could live, or if my life would end right there in the sea.
The beginning in Brussels
When I arrived in Belgium in 2014, I was not completely detached from the war and everything that had happened. Despite this, near my apartment in Brussels was a small court where I would go to watch people play volleyball. Remembering and feeling my injury from back in Syria, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to play again. But I gathered my courage and looked for a volleyball group to play with. The first time I stepped onto the court was overwhelming. I remembered who I was and for the first moment, I felt the power of that place. At first, I wasn’t at my best because I was still trapped in my thoughts. Then, with the first serve I made, everything came back to me in a second. From that moment, I began playing regularly and built wonderful friendships in Ghent, Leuven, Brussels and Antwerp. After a while, I moved to Antwerp for work and I began to build a community of volleyball-loving friends.
No Blockers is born
The friends I made in Antwerp came from all over the world, boasting 25 different nationalities. Somehow, that diversity brought us closer together. We started participating in tournaments in Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands. At some point, we realized we needed a name for our team. That’s when “No Blockers” was born. The name was inspired by the word “block” in volleyball, but for us it meant much more. Although we came from different cultures, religions and backgrounds, there were no barriers between us: No Blockers, so to say. What started out as a group of friends eventually evolved into something much bigger. In 2025, seeing how much love, energy, and time we all invested into the team, we decided to officially create No Blockers as Antwerp’s first international volleyball club.
Our international No Blockers family
A future we invite you to
I once believed that my dream and my journey with volleyball had ended with the closing of those fields in Homs. But through the efforts of every member of No Blockers, my dream found its way into the light. By connecting our strengths and our love for volleyball, we created a new, more powerful path. Today, we want to leave a mark in this world for everyone who loves this sport, so that they will always have a place to play, a place filled with hope and life.
What sets our club apart are our people. Dedicated club members like Fabio, Begüm and Mladen, who want to contribute and help our players at becoming better. They combined their strengths; statistics, physiotherapy and volleyball coaching, to develop a fitness app for our players.
The idea behind the app
Recently, our players filled out a survey in which they indicated previous and current injuries. Based on the results, and data from more than 20 matches, the project group developed a personalised plan for each player. The training content is personalised and the exercises take 1min each with 30 second breaks in between and feature a clear instruction video. The player can do the exercises daily and mark them completed so that the coaching team can see the progress. The exercises change every week based on development and training needs.
Impressions of the interface of the volleyball fitness app on desktop, tablet and phone.
The participation is voluntary and the data will not be collected. Fabio says: “we saw this more as a nice add-on for our teammates and the way we train.” Mladen adds: “this fitness tracker will not determine nor influence decisions on how we fill positions for matches. Everyone will as always get the same opportunity to play and to develop together.” The exercises follow modern standards of physiotherapy and are chosen with great care by dr. Begüm Okudan: “we made sure that all of the exercises help with individual muscular deficits but also focus on the core needs of volleyball, namely explosiveness, agility and strength”.
The future of our trainings
This app is not meant to revolutionise our trainings, but it ties in with the data usage project that we started this season. As a growth-oriented club, we are always on the lookout for new trends and ways of improving the sport we love. This digitisation project is not doomed to end in a mixed augmented reality situation or some sort of cybernetic training procedures. Volleyball is still physical and enjoyed by humans – this will always remain the same. However, we will keep developing this project as we keep developing our club enshrined in our motto: No fear. No limits. No Blockers.
We have many goals, and developing our own merch was one of them. In January, we finalised the designs and agreed on the products. Now, our players have received the items and are genuinely happy with the outcome. But why did we create our merch in the first place?
Listening to our players
First and foremost, our players repeatedly asked for club merch because everyone felt a real need for a hoodie and training jacket for warm-up exercises. On top of that, we wanted to be able to show where we belong via a shared way of clothing and expose our brand to the public.
Demonstrated togetherness
The impression we create on our opponents when entering the sports hall together, wearing our clubwear, is higher than when everyone just wears something different. It demonstrates that we are one cohesive team and stand together.
Celebrating No Blockers
The club merch is also a nice way of rewarding ourselves for the past few months which have been hectic at times, but always successful. We love No Blockers and we want the club to grow, so having merch is another step to make those ambitions a reality. The merch is only available to club members for now, but this might change in the future.
We are happy to announce that No Blockers is now finally and officially a registered vzw (vereniging zonder winstoogmerk) in Belgium!
Why does this matter?
Becoming a vzw is more than a change in letters. As a feitelijke vereniging (fv), we were regarded a group of people coming together for a shared goal or purpose under the eyes of the law. However, we always felt that No Blockers is destined for more. Becoming a vzw means commitment, institutionalisation and development to us.
Commitment because we commit to the values and principles of our club enshrined in our constitution, democratic governance and code of conduct. This step also signals to our opponents, competition leagues and sport federations that we have our feet on the ground and are here to stay and grow.
Institutionalisation is a chunky word, but we hope that our members and the general public will come to see No Blockers not only as a club with a purpose, but also as an institutional authority in Antwerp with a strong commitment to bring together volleyball players from all skill levels, roles and backgrounds.
Lastly, this officialisation will enable us to sell our own merch, contracting sponsors and carry out a variety of other financial activities. The board will reconvene soon to review No Blockers’ future path and growth strategies.
The process
We considered becoming a vzw in early 2025, but there was simply too much on our plate and we had to focus on very real organisational questions of logos and teamwear. The project however never came to a complete standstill. Luka co-authored the constitution (onderhandse akte) in the months to follow and took over the process of changing our judicial form. With the new year’s energy we decided to make a push and, after a lot of proofreading, hand in our request which was promptly accepted.
What is next?
We’re still the same old club with the same outstanding people and principles. No Blockers will accept sponsors for the 2026/27 season soon and hold its first general assembly in August. We are currently also working on getting recognised as an official sports club (erkende sportclub) in Antwerp. Bear with us, watch our livestreams or support us live at matches and never forget: No fears. No limits. No Blockers.
The 2026/27 season seems far away, but it most certainly is not from a club management perspective. We have big goals for next year and are already starting to get things moving in the background. One of these activities is to build a No Blockers women’s team.
Beginnings in motion
On November 9th No Blockers, No Blockers-affiliated and Team Beshie women players came together for a trial match in Sporthal De Rode Loop in Merksem. The goal was to get better grip on where we stand with a potential women’s team. The atmosphere was great, with a lot of interest from the rest of the club members manifesting itself in attendance. There were no losers that day, only one big winner: No Blockers club. If we combine the strengths of all of the players present that day, we will have an exceptionally strong women’s team.
Our vision
Team Beshie’s players will merge with the No Blockers women’s team fully and officially by early 2026. We will issue a press release once the process has been completed. Our hopes are that one team will start competing in the 3rd provincial league of Antwerp. If we’re lucky, we will have a first and second women’s team. One starting in 3rd Provincial and the other starting in Sporta V. We also want to continuously grow our women’s teams.
Training philosophy
As for the trainings, both teams (or one) will be under the leadership of Begüm and Sacha as captain and coach, respectively. The idea is to hold mixed trainings as well as focused separate ones. The philosophy behind this is that we want to act as one club and exchange and community are central to our DNA. So mingling and enjoying the sport together is important to us. However, we also realise that certain aspects of the game are best practised separately. The attack through the middle being the most prevalent one, for example.
What the future holds
We are looking forward for the next months to come. Our women’s team is already an organised group and their friendly matches see high attendance and interest from our club members. Each player knows their position well, so now it is all about developing that special team spirit and synergy so that they can beat their opponents within the blink of an eye.
