Working paper European Association for Sociology of Sport -congress Bourdeaux, 23.-25.5.2018 Sport organisation research -network Title: Finnish sport system in transition: from mixed-model back to missionary configuration? Kati Lehtonen, Researcher (PhD) LIKES Research Centre for Sport and Health Sciences & Jari Lämsä, Chief Specialist, KIHU Olympic Research Centre
[email protected] Please note that this is a draft, do not use as a reference without asking permission.
Introduction Nordic countries are perceived to be similar societal systems known as the Nordic welfare states. Esping-Andersen (1989) has stated that the foundation of the Nordic welfare state system relies on social benefits guaranteed to all citizens while also ensuring their safety and wellbeing. This social and economic system in Nordic countries is known as the ‘Nordic model’ (Andersen et al. 2007, 13). The roots of sports are closely connected to these values of social equality. Sport expressed itself as sports movement and in all the Nordic countries the development of the sports movement and the welfare state has been parallel. (Andersen & Ronglan 2012; Norberg 1997.) Because of these similarities in the societal systems also the sport systems and ways to organize sport are experienced to be similar. In the context of sport, the Nordic model is conceptualised as ´Nordic sport model` that is also the synonym to sport movement. In practice, this terminology describes a sport system in which sport has been developed and organised on a voluntary basis and in which the activities are a combination of local, regional and national activities (Lindroth, 1974, 364). Furthermore, even if the Nordic sport model is less distinctive today than it once was, it continues to offer salutary lessons about organising and playing sport and, in particular, maintaining a balance between mass participation and elite performance (Bairnier 2010). However, the Nordic sport model and sport movements vary between the different Nordic countries and especially in Finland the past and present of sport movement has been special
(see Andersen & Ronglan 2012; Lehtonen 2015, 2017b; Mäkinen 2010; Mäkinen et al. 2016). In Finland, the sport movement was politically divided until the beginning of the 1990s. The most decisive change took place in the early 1990s when corporate practices were replaced by the exercise of power by government officials. The New Public Management (see e.g., Temmes 1998) began to define the practices of both the government and the sports movement. The sports movement’s power, even in issues related to itself, weakened and this was further advanced by the power vacuum created by structural disruption. This new reality was characterised by domain organisations as well as dispersed and detached organisational players (Heikkala 1998). Because of this mixture in which the state has strong decision-making power but the sport movement still exists, at least as a metaphor, the Finnish sport system can be described as a mixed-model system. This means that there is both bureaucratic and missionary configurations that both designate what are the structures, contents and agents in the sport system. (EU Sports Unit 2004; Henry 2009). Because of the dispersion caused by the domain structure, two reforms of the sports movement were initiated in the mid-2010s. These led to the present situation where the National Olympic Committee (NOC) is the only central sports organisation in Finland. However, despite of sport system remains now structurally more than ever Nordic sport model constituting by sport clubs, regional and national sport organisations and one central organisation, its legitimacy as the central organisation is unstable. The NOC is building up its legitimacy through a combination of private sector logic and government´s will is a traditional central organisation with a focus on member organisations and sports civic activities (Lehtonen 2017b). Thus, the present situation in the Finnish sport system is complex, and this ambivalence between structure and content drives our research aims. We analyse in this study how key factors of the Nordic sport model – such as volunteering, grass-roots level sport clubs and democratic decision-making structures – were taken into account during the reform processes in the 2010s? Our research data consist of the central organisation’s action plans and strategies (n = 15) from the years 2010–2017, and this data are analysed using qualitative content analysis. Our research adheres especially to the Nordic sports sociology research traditions, in which the Nordic sports model/sports movement have either provided the context of the studies or been the target of the studies (e.g. Bergsgard & Norberg 2010; Carlsson et al 2011; Enjolras & Wahdahl 2007; Fahlén & Stenling 2015; Ibsen & Seippel 2010; Norberg 1997; Seippel et al; Skille 2011; Skille & Sävfenbom 2011). The Finnish sports system has already been the subject of earlier research mainly concerning the elite sports systems (see Andersen & Ronglan 2012; De Bosscher 2015), but international academy research on the Finnish system as a whole has not been extensively scrutinised. Lehtonen (2017b) has researched the legitimacy of the central sports organisations in a hybridising environment, Mäkinen et al. (2016) have focused on domain structures and funding systems, while Giulianotti et al. (2017) have examined the relationship between sports and civil society.
Thus, the contribution of this research to international sport sociology research is to first understand the Finnish sports system and its characteristics within the context of the Nordic sports model that also is the analytical framework for the data. Secondly, from the viewpoint of sport organisation research this article discloses, how important it is to understand the sport system as a context when researching certain sport organisations inside the system. The article is structured as follows: In first section we introduce the VOCASPORT-typology and the key elements of the Nordic sports model. After that comes short description about Finnish sport system and the latest reform followed by research data and methodology. In the results section, we present our main findings and themes and also provide citations from source documents. The article ends with the discussion section.
VOCASPORT -typology and Nordic sport model The typology what we are used in this study to address Finnish sport system including sport policy is based on the VOCASPORT -typology, which is presented in the report commissioned by the Sports Unit of the European Commission (EU Sports Unit 2004). Report includes typology of sport policy systems in EU that are based on four parameters: 1) the role of public authorities, specifically the state as represented by the Ministry responsible for sport, 2) level of coordination of, or engaged by, the various actors involved in the sport system, 3) the respective roles of the voluntary, public and private sectors in the delivery of sporting provision, 4) the adaptability of the system to changes in demand. (ibid, 52.) Based on these parameters report identified typology that are bureaucratic, missionary, entrepreneurial and social configuration (EU Sports Unit 2004, 53). The "bureaucratic configuration" is characterised by the very active role that the public authorities take in regulating the system. There is almost always a legislative framework specific to the field that means law on sport. This is a system characterised by rules from a public authority which, with its political/democratic legitimacy, does not necessary negotiate to any great extent with other players. The voluntary sports movement acts by "delegation", social partners are often non-existent, and users/consumers and private entrepreneurs have a low impact on the implementation of a sports policy. The "missionary configuration" is characterised by the dominant presence of a voluntary sports movement with great autonomy to make decisions. The state or regional authorities delegate it much responsibility for orienting the sports policy, even though they may become gradually involved in a contractual logic with it. The social partners have little presence; legitimacy belongs more to the voluntary managers than to employees; users
rarely have the chance to adopt the position of consumer, and private entrepreneurs act on the fringes of the dominant system. The "entrepreneurial configuration" is characterised by the regulation of the system arising from the social or economic "demand" for sport. There is little to prevent the supply/demand relationship being directly regulated by the market. The public authorities' role consists essentially in setting a framework to enable this market logic to express itself. The voluntary sports movement must adapt to its requirements which correspond to the tendencies of private entrepreneurs and to attempt to maintain its positions, in this context. The "social configuration" is characterised by the presence of the social partners within a multifaceted system. This type of system is not univocally dominated by one player, but instead is subject to cohabitation/collaboration between public, voluntary and commercial players. The employee and employer representatives called upon to provide "governance" of the system are mostly concerned with the "common good" that sport brings, even though real tensions may appear. According to this typology, Finland and Finnish system is classified to be as a “bureaucratic configuration” as well as 16 states of 25, which was the amount of countries considered in report. In Finland the role of public authorities is strong, especially as a regulator of the system and there also is legislative frameworks that means concretely Sports Law. The role of sports confederations is also strong and because of this they recognized in report that Finnish system contains “very strong missionary component.” (EU Sports Unit 2004, 58.) So, it is evident that VOCASPORT typology is not completely implicit and no country displays all the criteria that would allow it to be assigned to a particular configuration and classifying countries explicitly to certain configuration is not possible. (EU Sports Unit 2004, 54). Because of this, VOCASPORT typology is redefined in Henry´s (2009) article, where he elaborates the policy ramifications of the four types by saying that they mainly represent a picture of classic configuration and because of that are stable and national policy system may exhibit aspects of more than one configuration. Henry (2009) imply a different focus in terms of service delivery (Figure 1). The bureaucratic configuration places emphasis on regulation of processes, rules and requirements concerning how to proceed, in short on accountability through following required processes. By contrast, the entrepreneurial configuration focuses almost exclusively on outputs, particularly in the context of public sector bodies contracting commercial entities to manage services, where contracts will stipulate the kinds of output to be achieved. The focus of the missionary configuration is on maintaining the broad social outcomes of a healthy voluntary sector in sport, rather than on government specifying the nature of direct outputs to be achieved. The voluntary sector is assumed to be relatively independent of
direct government pressures and when given selective autonomy will produce pubic benefits. The social configuration approach is thus focused on a long term commitment to social, political, and economic inclusion as a broader outcome, the building of social capacity in each sector such that multi-perspectival analyses of policy may be undertaken producing better and more sustainable policy.
Figure 1. The key goals of the four VOCASPORT Types of National Sports Policy Systems (Henry 2009). Nordic sport model
In the Nordic sport model sport has been developed and organized on a voluntary basis as well as the activities are a combination of local, regional and national activities (Lindroth, 1974, 364; Norberg 1997; Seippel et al. 2010). The ethos of voluntarism is strong and as Ibsen & Seippel (2010) has said, it is the most important resource to associations in different level - not only in sport clubs. Also voluntary work in national associations’ boards or committees is worth of noticing and because of that voluntarism really is indispensable. Nordic sport model´s scope, its geographical spread and its democratic organizational structure justify consideration of the 'sports movement' that is a collective term for the voluntarily organized activity and its base is also similar with other Nordic popular movements. But although the sports movement appears in a number of ways as the prototype for voluntary organizations, the activity has developed through co-operation with public institutions. (Norberg 1997.) Structurally Nordic sport model is so called pyramid-model that constitutes local, regional and national organs. At the local level sports activities are based on sport clubs and near them are regional sport organizations. National sport federations are responsible for
competitive sports, and the development of sport-specific cultures. The top of this pyramidmodel is central organization, which according to Norberg (1997) has double community roles: it is both the highest instance of the popular movement and also quasi-authority in its respective country. The organizational models of central sport organizations vary between the Nordic countries. However, all of them share the same aim: to bring the sports movement players together, and represent the interests of organized sports (see Skille 2011; Ibsen & Seippel 2010). What comes to the co-operation with state and sport movement from the viewpoint of resource-based governmental steering practices, they vary between the Nordic countries. Although in general, the role of the government as a partner of the sports movement is based on the importance of the sports organizations’ role in maintaining the welfare society (Carlsson et al 2011; Norberg, 2011). Also a common defining characteristic in Nordic sport model is that they are democratic and members of the board in different sizes of organizations are elected by the members. When we summarize the key factors of Nordic sport model there rises up five things: voluntarism, sport clubs as strong grass-root level organs, democratic desicion making, pyramid-structure and central organization´s double-role. Combining this key factors and the VOCASPORT typology, where Finnish sport system is classified to be as “bureaucratic with a strong missionary component” and take to account Henry´s (2009) notes that every configuration has a different focus in terms of service delivery, we come to focus of this article. As literature above shows, Finland as one of the Nordic countries has always perceived similar what comes to other Nordic countries and sport systems they have. Some differences, likes strong political bifurcation and the structural dispersion in the beginning of the 1990´s are identified, but the components of voluntary sports movement still exist. However, even Finnish sport system today, after its latest reform that ended in 2017, structurally remains more than ever Nordic sport model, it still locates in the middle of bureaucratic and missionary configuration. These ambivalent situation give us the direction of this article that is to analyse how the key factors of Nordic sport model was take to account in the latest reform and is there ongoing some kind of transition back to missionary configuration followed by the structures. In next section we make short description concerning the Finnish sport system as a whole and its history giving at the same time context to latest reform. Finnish sport system and its history In Finland, sports and exercise are the most common form of civic activity. There are approximately 10,000 sports clubs in the country, with a total number of members exceeding 1.1 million € (Mäkinen et al. 2015). Sixty percent of under 14-year-olds are
engaged in sports activities organized by sports clubs regularly (Lehtonen & Hakonen, 2013). The state sport budget is almost totally (99.5%) made up of National Lottery funds. In 2015, the state sport subsidy was 189 million euros, including 40 million euros for the Helsinki Olympic Stadium renovation. Without this extra subsidy, the sport budget has been around 150 million euros during previous years (MEC 2017). In 2015, one-quarter of the sport subsidies were directed to the civic sector of sport, which in practice meant 123 national and regional sport organizations and Olympic Committee. Sport clubs are supported via municipalities (50 million euro). They also allocate approximately 690 million euros tax revenue to sport and PA every year that, for example, enables construction and maintenance of sports facilities and services that are directed to disabled body people and senior citizens (MEC 2017). The remarkable thing in Finnish sport system is the central role of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) which makes almost all decisions what it comes to states´ sport subsidies. For example, all subsidies directed to national and regional sport organizations are determined by the MEC. This means that sport organizations including NOC have no possibilities to decide how to use resources inside the sport organizations and sport movement. The only notable exception is that the High Performance Unit, established in 2013 inside the NOC, forwards subsidies to national sport organisations to develop elite and Paralympic sport. In 2016, the amount of forwarded subsidies was 4.9 million euro. However, it is notable that besides municipalities allocates yearly almost 700 million euro to sport also private sector private consumption is remarkable in Finland. In general, the private sector sponsored sport to the tune of €133 million in 2015 (Sponsor Insight, 2016) and households devoted €775 million to sport in 2012 (Hakamäki, 2014), mainly on sports equipment and participation fees. So, comparing to these amounts, states subsidies are small, but from the viewpoint of sport organizations they are remarkable. Politically divided sport movement
What comes to the history of Finnish sport system, unlike in the other Nordic countries, the system is characterized by strong politicization, resulting in the development of two separate sports movements, the ‘bourgeois’ sports movement and the ‘working class’ sports movement (Hentilä 1992). In the other Nordic countries, the political nature of the sports movement had disappeared by the 1950s, but in Finland this division lasted until the 1990s. (Heikkala 1998; Andersen & Ronglan, 2012). The hegemonic era of these two movements ended when the reform fuelled by the New Public Management (NPM) doctrine started in the beginning of 1990s and it applied also to publicly funded sports organisations. NPM penetrated itself to the Finnish public administration with its operating logic based on performance and domain-based thinking (Temmes 1998). Even the era of two strong sport movement and their central organizations, the Finnish Central Sports Federation (FCSF) and the Finnish Workers’ Sports Federation (SWSF), came
to an end these two federations continued their operations. However the politically based, centralized organization policy was gradually replaced by a decentralized sports policy, manifested in both the organizational structure and the distribution of resources. A completely new central organization, the Finnish Sports Federation (SLU) was established in 1993. The aim of the new organization was to represent the national sports organizations and serve their interests. The Ministry of Education and Culture named three of the national sports organizations as domain organizations, with a task to provide their member organizations with domain-specific sports activities and services. Nuori Suomi (Young Finland Association called here Youth Sport) was responsible for sports for children and youth, Kunto (Sport for all Association called here Sport for All) for adults’ health enhancing physical activities, and the Olympic Committee for elite sports. All domain organizations were members of the SLU (Heikkala 1998). At its peak, the number of SLU’s member organizations was 131. National sport federations formed the largest single group of member organizations, accounting for almost half of them. It is obvious, that the domainbased structure decentralized the field of sports organizations into several power centres, and the SLU’s role as the lead organization and representative body was obscure, right from the outset (Heikkala 1998). The domain-based structure maintained to the 2010s first decade where started the latest reform in Finnish sport system. Reform process 2008–2017 The need to modernise the Finnish sport system was raised in the late 2000’s. The problems related to the domain structure, especially overlapping tasks and different ideologies between sport for all and elite sport. Domain structure was also bureaucratic and “overgoverned” and besides these Olympic success was decreasing. Comparing the motives behind the reform to other countries they seems to very similar. As for example Houlihan & Green (2009) and Skille & Säfvenbom (2011) have analysed the reforms in several countries, the main reasons have been exactly the same: to build success in elite sports, to reduce bureaucracy by simplifying organisational structures, and to develop operational efficiency. The idea to unify domain organizations and renew Olympic Committee subsequently divided into two different reform processes (Lehtonen 2017a, 21-24), which is described as a timeline in Figure 2. First of all, the planning of reform started when the state and NOC launched a new working group for elite sport in November 2008 (named in the figure as `State´s Elite Sport working group´). The main tasks of the group were to reform both the strategic principles of Finnish elite sport and the functional responsibilities of the different actors so that international success could be possible in the 2020s. The implementation phase of the elite sport reform started in 2010, when a special ‘elite sport reform group’, known as HUMU, was created and funded by MEC (MEC 2010). HUMU consist of seven full-time employee and after two and half years work the HUMU-group proposed new structure to solve strategic problems in Finnish elite sport that was
establishment an independent elite sport unit called High-Performance Unit (HPU). This unit was founded and positioned inside the NOC in the beginning of 2013.
Figure 2. Reform-process in Finnish sport system 2008-2017.
The second part of Finnish sport systems reform was that Finnish Sport Federation (SLU) together with its member federations started a process that initially aimed to create a strategic plan for the entire sport community in 2009. The process produced another structural solution, as the old central organisation, SLU and two out of three domain organisations; Youth sport and Sport for all, emerged as a one new umbrella organisation, The Finnish Sport Confederation – VALO in 2013 (Lehtonen 2015). The domain organization of elite sport, NOC, joined the confederation only as a member. Between years 2013-16 Finland had two central sport organisations; NOC responsible for elite sport and VALO responsible for large spectrum of activities from promotion of health enhancing physical activity to club activities and sport for all. (Lehtonen 2017a,b.) The reform came to its end on first of January 2017, when the number of central sports organizations reduced into one and VALO merged with the NOC. Year before that Valo and NOC unified already their operational functions like they had common secretary general. This short period is named to figure as ´Valo-NOC`. This process led to one central sports organisation and this retained the name of Finnish Olympic Committee (NOC), with the vision statement of being ‘The world’s most physically active nation and best Nordic country in elite sport in 2020’. Organisationally, the new NOC is divided into two units: the elite sport unit and the physical activity unit.
Research data and methods
The research material for the article consist central sports organizations (SLU, Valo and NOC) action plans and strategies (n=15). Later in the text data is also called ´document(-s)’ or ‘text-material.’ The data were collected from the years 2010-2017. In 2010 the implementation of the reform started when HUMU-group were established. Comparably years 2011-2012 were important because domain structure was closed down, Valo was established and HUMU finished its work. From 2013 to 2016 Valo was the named central organisation, but NOC had strong impact in the field of sport. As a whole documents represents thinking of the whole sport movement, because texts are together produced and decided in the meetings. So, they are a kind of “common will and voice” of sport movement as an institution (c.f. Douglas 1986). Documents are also collected during the reform that means it is also possible to catch out the thinking and views in real time. This means that temporally data constitutes a coherent data-corpus from the start of reform to its end as a chronological order. Data were analysed by using qualitative content analysis (see Krippendorf 2013, 22–23). During the first reading, the material was classified into broad thematic areas, taking the selected framework into account that means how volunteering, sport clubs, democracy, central organization´s double-role and structure (pyramid-model) were paid attention to. In the second round these wider themes were summarized to sub-themes and key findings. Results Before proceeding with our main results, which are so far tentative, we disclose some statistics about the central sports organisations during reform process. We then discuss the results from the perspective of the key factors within the sport movement mentioned above. Figure 3 shows changes in the number of personnel during the reform. In 2009, the beginning of the reform, the number of personnel in the four domain organisation was 109. Eight years later, in 2017, when Valo and NOC unified, that corresponding number was 66. These numbers show that some of the reform targets, such as centralisation and a less bureaucratic system, were realised from the viewpoint of central sports organisation.
During that same period, the amount of total expenses of the organisations decreased. In 2009, the combined expenses of the domain organisations and SLU was over €17.4 million whereas new NOC’s expenses for 2017 was €10 million (Figure 4).
120 100 80 60 40 20 0 2009
2012 SLU
2013 Sport for All
2014 Youth Sport
2015 Valo
2016
2017
NOC
Figure 3. Amount of personnel in central sports organisations and domain organisations in 2009-2017.
20000000 18000000 16000000 14000000 12000000 10000000 8000000 6000000 4000000 2000000 0 2009
2012 SLU
2013
Sport for All
2014 Youth Sport
2015 Valo
2016
2017
NOC
Figure 4. Amount of total expenses in central sports organisations and domain organisations in 2009-2017.
Volunteering
The significance of voluntary work to sports and the sport system is only weakly recognised in all the documents. Actually, the word volunteering was mentioned at all. A few sentences refer to voluntary work being accomplished through civic activities and civic engagement. Furthermore, the focus has largely been legalistic or regulative, as in this example from Valo’s strategy (2013): “national and international legislation should support better sports civic activities.” Also SLU´s target was not voluntary work. Only statement it made in its action plan in 2012 was that “SLU increases civic activity in sport”. This statement is quite univocal, but also abstract, because it is quite obvious that no central organisation itself has direct capability or equipment to increase civic activity. So, when summarizing theme volunteering, it is not exaggerated to say that this basic element of sport movement is weakly addressed in documents. Sport clubs
Sport clubs, as units of organised sport, are mentioned in every document and are also recognised as a requirement for different kinds of physical activities or sports at the local level. However, sport clubs are more passive than active partners. Central organisations have tended to set the targets for sport clubs; for example, “sport clubs must have clear goals and management should be inspiring” (Valo 2014) or “70 % of coaches are educated and 3000 sport clubs have clear strategy” (Valo 2015). These examples also disclose that Valo set up exact numbers of what sport clubs should do and how they should be run. The evolution of this measuring has been progressive since 2009-2010: In 2010, the SLU only generalised the goals but by 2015, Valo had set strict targets. It is also worth noting that neither Valo, the SLU nor NOC will themselves, for example, educate coaches. So, as a big picture, there seems to be gap between what the central organisations set as targets and their impact on helping sport clubs reach these targets. Decision-making and democracy
Both decision-making and democracy are strongly connected to the role of the central sports organisation and its structure. Because of that, some findings could be applied to each of these four themes. An obvious strategic transition occurred from the SLU to new NOC (2017) in terms of democratic actions and decision-making. The SLU’s action plan included a clear description that “SLU and its member organisations constitutes together SLU-community that operates in national, regional and local level.” In comparison, NOC’s strategy and action plan of 2017 had, for example, no descriptions on decision-making about annual meetings or elections. The only exception to this was the positioning of the High-Performance Unit (HPU): “HPU is responsible of leading the elite-sport network.” It seems that at the beginning of the reform there was a need to re-build the “community”, and also the lack of “common discussion arenas” were recognised (SLU 2012). The
structurally dispersed domain-based period from 1993 to 2012 meant that new ways of gathering member organisations together was needed and this need was recognised. However, this distinct target was never implemented as reform proceeded. This might be connected to the role and position of the central sport organisation as well as the pyramid structure that are discussed next. The double role and structure of the central organisation
As mentioned above, the clear targets considering the democracy passed away meanwhile the reform proceeded. When the focus is on the role of central organisation, the results shows that there have happened similar transition from the SLU to new NOC. SLU stated in its strategy (2010) that “SLU is service and coordination organisation for Finnish sport organisations and takes also care of the promotions of interests of sports”. The functions of SLU is strongly adhered to member organisation and also, as mentioned in section decisionmaking and democracy, SLU also express what were its components in local and regional level are. When comparing this SLU´s statement to Valo’s first strategy (2013), there is a clear distinction from the role that Valo took: “Valo want to be the integrative force that bring together actors around sport….because of this, the strategy will underline that targets are achieved together with stakeholders, partners and networks.” Simplifying this, the step from “service and coordination” to “integrative force” shows that Valo was no longer satisfied with leading only its members. One reason was Valo´s very all-round strategy that took account for example day-care, schools and workplaces and how peoples in there could be more physically active during their life-course. In other words, when Valo launch this strategy it also had to position itself out of the legacy that SLU left to it. Another words, which were highlighted in the Valo´s strategy were “partnership” and “team”. Partnership was combined to Valo´s role and team was a concept how Valo described these partners with whom it put its strategy to practise. This team included above mentioned schools, day-cares, municipalities etc. When considering the final step in how NOC’s new role was described (NOC 2017), the result was completely two-folded. First, the strategy stated that “sport is the most significant folk movement in Finland.” But the movement was not described and its concept and phases were mainly taken for granted. For example, instead of describing how certain components of the sports movement are related to each other, the NOC strategy used abstract metaphors such as “NOC supports ecosystems.” NOC also created a new definition for itself that it is the “common voice of sport in Finnish society.” This definition continues the logic of Valo and confirms the observation that the new NOC, which supposedly represents sports and especially member organisations, has alienated itself from its members. From the viewpoint of the sports movement, this means that NOC as agent has drift apart from the structure and also the content, that is meaning here the strategy goals,
are conflicting between the structures that should implement them. It is presumable that the pyramid model that SLU recognised in its documents has faded away because of the wide repertoire of targets that Valo and later the new NOC stated in their strategies. The traditional structure of the sports movement was not enough to achieve and implement the targets, and so the central organisation needs partnerships and co-operation with multirepresentative societal sectors if it wants its goals and aims to be realised.
Discussion As the results show, the key elements of the Nordic sports model were weakly recognised. Volunteering is especially missing in this new model, and so we ask if volunteering has become self-evident or whether it is no longer worth considering. In contrast, sport clubs have been recognised as a basic element of the system, especially in the latest documents. However, sports clubs have a more passive than active role and their goals are decided for them. This means that the model is now ‘top-down’ and that ‘bottom-up’ decisions are ignored. Decision-making and democracy were more strictly observed at the start of the reform as well as the role of the central organisation. So, it seems that when the unification finally achieved its end and the new NOC was established in 2017, these elements of the sport movement passed away. However, the structure of the sport movement still exists and the pyramid model is now more real than ever before. When combining these results to VOCASPORT-typology and Henry’s viewpoint that the Finnish system was classified as a mixed model between bureaucratic and missionary configuration, it seems that the elements of social configuration in the thinking of the central sports organisation are prevalent. However, the structure and part of the manifestation still depend on missionary configuration and the base of all is still primarily bureaucratic model because of the strong steering from the state. In summary, all this means that the Finnish model is now more mixed that ever before. We recommend that a future research should be for example interviews to directors and officials in the central organisation and government and also in national governing bodies to deepen our understanding of the role and contribution of NOC in relation to the sports movement. We would also like to discuss, concerning sports organisation research: what is the impact of a lack of understanding about the current sports system in certain country and what is the relationship between the sports system and the organisations that constitute the system?
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