Top Sports | New report paints a barren picture of top Finnish sports: “Dropped far from the world’s leading sports countries”

Ministry of Education and Culture fresh report According to him, there are several problem areas in top Finnish sports. According to it, elite sports are unable to meet the societal expectations placed on it.

The report describes that “top Finnish sports have a great past, an uncertain present and a challenging future”.

At the end of 2021, the Ministry of Education and Culture established a group of experts to assess the state and future of top sports in Finland.

Born in Finnish top sports need confidence final report by a professor Karl-Erik Michelsenspecialist researcher Kati Lehtonenexhibition manager Kalle Rantala and assistant professor Markku Jokisipilä.

Finnish Efforts have been made in recent years to reform sports life since the report submitted by Huusu 2012, the working group for change in top sports. At that time, it was also decided to establish an Olympic Sports Excellence Unit to manage and coordinate Finnish excellence.

According to Kati Lehtonen, a specialist researcher at Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences, the idea of ​​centralization has been justified in principle.

“Then comes the but. The direction is not good in Finland, when we look at many success indicators, which are medals and points internationally so far, ”Lehtonen said at the launch of the report on Tuesday in Helsinki.

According to him, it is worth asking whether the choices made in the top domestic sports in the early 2010s were “structurally correct and whether they provided added value, ie international success”.

One the turning points of recent years were seen in 2017 when the reformed Olympic Committee became operational as a result of the closures and mergers of several organizations.

“The model of one umbrella organization and the so-called centralization have been a project in Finnish sports for a hundred years. What was achieved in 2017 was a kind of end point, but somehow here has been the logic of forced change processes. ”

“We haven’t really gotten to our feet from the big change of the 1990s at the system level. We are kind of stuck in a cycle of continuous repairs, ”Lehtonen said.

Report The authors give a barren picture of the development of Finland’s top sports success, because “although individual success stories still emerge, Finland has fallen far away from the world’s leading sports countries”.

Also Danish researchers Rasmus K. Storm and Klaus Nielsen find problems in the top Finnish sports system. They produce one final report background reports.

“Although improvements have been made in recent years, the system remains complex, fragmented and bureaucratic. Guidance and division of labor or responsibilities are unclear, and communication between different stakeholders is limited, ”the background report states.