Abstract
The voluntary sports sector is the core of the sports system in Finland. Typically sports volunteers are coaches and active parents in sports clubs or volunteers in sports events. The importance of nonprofit sports clubs dates back to the mid-1800s when the first sports clubs were founded in Finland. The foundation of the strong voluntary civic sector stems from the historical background in which sports club formation was closely connected to temperance, labor, and youth movements of the independence seeking society. Nowadays there are nearly 10,000 sports clubs, most of them nonprofit registered associations, and hundreds of sports events organized annually in which an estimated half a million Finns work voluntarily. The future challenges of sports volunteering in Finland relate to the demographic changes and economic fluctuations of the society and individualistic motives of the citizens.
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Vehmas, H., Koski, P., Lehtonen, K. (2018). Finland. In: Hallmann, K., Fairley, S. (eds) Sports Volunteers Around the Globe. Sports Economics, Management and Policy, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02354-6_8
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