Hanna Vehmas

Finland: From Steering to the Evaluation of Effectiveness

The Finnish sport system consists of three major elements: voluntarism in sport clubs; the public sector with state subsidies for municipalities’ sport budgets; and the private sector’s offering of sport-related services and products. Participation in sport by Finns has traditionally been based on the combination of a strong civic sector and state support. Nowadays, however, as a result of the recent economic recession, the breakdown of the Nordic welfare model and changing values in relation to voluntary work, there have been changes in Finland in terms of the condition of sport and the relationship between the public and voluntary sectors. There has also been a decline in the level of state support for maintaining and constructing sport facilities. New forms of collaboration, especially in the for-profit and voluntary sport sector, are needed in order to secure citizens’ possibilities for sport in the future.

Development, Current Situation and Future Prospects of the Private Sport Sector in Europe

This book outlined the private sport sector of the 18 European countries by using the Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2, 2008) as a basic statistical framework. According on the country chapters European sport is divided into public, voluntary and private sectors. Depending on how strongly and through what kind of historical processes these sectors have developed, European countries taking part in this project can be classified as 1) historically and traditionally strong non-profit voluntary sport sector countries, 2) former Eastern Bloc countries and 3) countries with strong commercial sport activities. Based on the statistics, sport goods sales make the core of the private sport sector in Europe. Other important business fields are top-level sport clubs functioning as limited companies, especially in football; operations of sport facilities; and fitness facilities as a strongly developing market during this millennium. Also sport and recreation education has increased its role as an important part of the profit-making sport sector. In addition, sport related tourism is growing, although it is not a NACE classified business field. Visible examples are ski resorts and golf activities. Private sport sector has gained a prominent position in the 2000’s in all of the 18 countries of this book. Even though profit-making sport sector represents only a small share of the total economies in Europe, it is perceived as an auspicious business sector now and in the future. In order to be able to give more accurate estimates of this sector, sport business related statistics need to be further developed.

Getting a Grip on the Private Sport Sector in Europe

Contemporary sport is organized and developed around public, voluntary and private sectors. Especially public and voluntary sport sectors have been approached in recent publications in Europe, where sport has traditionally been formed around state involvement and non-profit sport clubs. Private sport sector has received less attention in research because the field is multidimensional, fragment and difficult to define. Private sport sector comprises all profit making, commercial companies and other organisations and events that produce and sell sport goods and services with the aim of making monetary profit. The demand for sport-related products and services has been growing for many years. In addition, the public sector is at least partially withdrawing from sport service supply in many European countries. For these reasons, it is important to outline the private sport sector in Europe. This book covers detailed information about altogether 18 European countries’ (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and United Kingdom) private sport sectors. The book looks into the private sport sector’s position among the three sport sectors and outlines the structures, characteristics, most significant sport business fields, largest companies and major changes during the 2000’s. Statistical classification of economic activities in the European Community (NACE Rev. 2, 2008) is used as a basic statistical framework of this book and also other country-specific databases are utilized.

Sport Clubs in Finland

This chapter introduces the current state of the Finnish sport clubs. The article aims to highlight firstly, how sport and physical culture in Finland are historically based on the civil society and volunteer activities; secondly what are the characteristics of sport clubs in Finland; and finally what kind of challenges sport clubs are facing at the moment and in the future.