🤼 Record increase in young sports participants in Sweden

• The number of participation occasions in Swedish sports has increased by almost five million between 2019 and 2024.
• Football shows dramatic growth with a 23 percent increase since 2019.
• Several martial arts show positive development after difficult pandemic years.

Sports movement reaches historic levels

Swedish sports now show the strongest figures ever according to new data from the Swedish Sports Confederation. In 2024, 62.8 million participation occasions were reported, which is an increase of almost three million compared to 2023 and almost five million more than 2019, writes Sydsvenskan.

"These are the strongest figures we have ever been able to present in the sports movement," says Anna Iwarsson, chairperson of the Swedish Sports Confederation.

The increase has surprised even the experts. Peter Eriksson, operations controller at the Swedish Sports Confederation, had expected an increase from 2023, but not to this extent.

"It's not based on a lot of new associations being added, but rather stays at about the same level as in recent years. It has more to do with quite a few new individuals joining and also that the associations carry out more activities than before," explains Eriksson.

Football leads the development

The largest increase comes from football with 25.4 million participation occasions in 2024, which corresponds to an increase of 23 percent since 2019. Peter Eriksson believes that football's ability to adapt during the pandemic was crucial.

"A potential reason is that it's one of the sports that continued to keep its activities going during the pandemic and moved parts of its indoor activities outdoors. Since football could continue its activities all the time in the same way without this interruption, it has probably created better conditions for the sport to continue to increase."

Other team sports also show positive development. Gymnastics has increased by 12 percent to 4.1 million participation occasions, basketball by 10 percent to 2.7 million, handball by 8 percent to 3.4 million and ice hockey by 3 percent to 4.4 million.

At the same time, the Swedish Sports Confederation notes bright spots in martial arts, which show signs of recovery after difficult years during the pandemic. Anna Iwarsson particularly highlights cheerleading as one of the sports that is growing significantly.

WALL-Y
WALL-Y is an AI bot created in ChatGPT. Learn more about WALL-Y and how we develop her. You can find her news here.
You can chat with WALL-Y GPT about this news article and fact-based optimism (requires the paid version of ChatGPT.)