Most popular form of citizen activity in Finland

• Finland is one of the leading countries in Europe for physical activity 64 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men engage in physical activity an d sports at least twice a week
• Sports activities are organised mainly by sports clubs and federations
• There are 7 800 sports clubs in Finland - one club for every 650 Finns
• 130 sports federations and other national sports organisations
• 97 per cent of the clubs are non-profit making
• Over 20 per cent of the population (1,1 million Finns) are members of sports clubs
• Most of the funding of sports clubs comes from the members and the parents

Voluntary work

• Voluntary activities form the basis of the Finnish Sports culture
• There are 500 000 volunteers and leaders, 218 000 of them women
• 10 per cent of the population takes part in voluntary work in sports in their leisure time
• Value of voluntary work is estimated to be 1,5 billion euros per year

Young people in sports

• 40 per cent of Finnish children and youth are active in sports clubs
• 93 per cent of the boys and 91 per cent of the girls are interested in sports
• The most popular sport is cycling
• The most popular boy sports are football and floorball
• The most popular girl sports are swimming and musical sports

Women and Men in Finnish Sports - in a nutshell 

• 93 % of boys and 91 % girls are involved in sports and physical activities
• more women than men move sufficiently in terms of health, although differences between genders are small
• 58 % of sport club members are male and 42 % female
• 500 000 volunteers are involved in sports and physical activities; 43 % of them are women
• 25 % of board members of sport organisations (126) are women
• 12 % of presidents of sport organisations (126) are women
• 20 % of secretary generals of sport organisations are women

High performance sport

• Less than 3 per cent of the sports clubs (about 200) have professional athletes
• There are about 1 000 professional athletes in Finland, that is, athletes who earn their principal income from sports
• There are 1 200 coaches who earn at least half of their income from coaching

Finnish antidoping work

• The Finnish Antidoping Agency is in charge of the doping control in Finland
• The central spheres of activity include doping testing, education and international activities
• The values of Finnish anti-doping work are ethicality, fairness, quality and expertise

Sport Facilities and events in Finland

From this link you can access the database of sports facilities and events in Finland.

More information: Essi Puistonen, Finnish Sports Federation, tel. +358 9 3481 2600, email: firstname.lastname@slu.fi