Sports in Finland

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 sports for boys are football and floorball
  • The most popular sports for girls 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 in Finland.


More information: Katriina Sahala, Finnish Sports Federation
Tel. +358 9 3481 2034, email: firstname.lastname@slu.fi