Elite Sports in Finland
The people of Finland are not only successful in sports but also “sports crazy”. The important role of sports in the Finnish society is first and foremost based on Finland’s successful sports history. From the beginning of the 1920’s until the 1952 home Olympic Games, Finland unquestionably belonged to the absolute sport elite in the world. Since the 1970’s, Finland’s success in international sports has started to better correspond to the small size and population of the country.
Studies show that the popularity of elite sports and expectations for success are still high in Finland. According to an extensive national study of physical activities, The National Sports Survey 2005-2006 (Kansallinen liikuntatutkimus), 75 % of the Finnish people regard Finland’s success in international sports as fairly or absolutely important.
The sports that most expectations are directed to are the ones in which Finland traditionally has been successful, that is cross-country skiing, track and field sports, ice hockey and ski jumping. High hopes for success were also placed on football and motor sports.
Sports cover about ten percent of the programmes broadcast by the national TV channels in Finland. The large sports coverage on TV has not, however, made Finnish people passive, at least not yet. More than half (56%) of the adult population annually follow sports events live. Finnish men are more active in watching sports on the spot than women. Ice hockey is the most attractive sport in terms of spectators. Football is the second most popular, after which follow the most interesting individual sports - track and field sports and cross-country skiing.
Sports Clubs - Basis of Elite Sports
Sport is the most popular form of citizen activity in Finland, and sports clubs play an important role also as the basis of elite sports.
- 42 % (417 000) of Finnish children and young people are engaged in sports clubs
- 13 % (440 000) of the adult population are active in sports clubs.
- There are more than 9 000 sports clubs in Finland, and over 97 % of the clubs operate on an ideological basis for the public good.
- More than 500 000 Finns take part in volunteer work within sports in their spare time without compensation. The activities are primarily focused on young people.
There are still rather few professional athletes and coaches in Finland. In 2007 there were about 1 000 professional athletes, whose primary source of income is sports. About 20 percent of these were foreigners. The professional athletes practised their sport in only 100 sport clubs from the total 9 000 Finnish sport clubs. In addition, about 500 Finnish professional athletes worked abroad. There are also 1 200 coaches who get more than half of their income from sports in Finland.
Economy of Sports
The State of Finland supports sports with its lottery profits, securing the opportunity to do sports for all Finns, especially for families. The annual profit of Veikkaus, the government-owned Finnish National Lottery, has in the past few years been a little less than 400 million euros, which is divided between science, culture, sports and youth work. The share of each sector varies slightly every year. In the year 2007, the lottery profits were divided approximately in the following way: science (17,5 %), culture (38,5 %), sports (25,0 %) and youth work (9,0 %).
In 2007, the state support for sports amounted to over 100 million euros, of which about 9 million euros was directly aimed at supporting elite sports (including the support for elite sports from the national sports federations, the Olympic Committee’s support and state’s grants for athletes). In addition, considerable support is received indirectly through the construction of sports facilities, education, research and educational centres.
The majority of the governmental support for Finnish sport clubs comes indirectly from public-owned sports facilities. The density of sports facilities in Finland is among the highest in the world – there is one sports facility for 175 people in Finland. Seventy-five percent of the places are owned by municipalities.
(Sources of information: National Sports Survey 2005-2006 (Suuri kansallinen liikuntatutkimus 2005-2006), Finnish Sports Federation – http://www.slu.fi/)