In a survey, 686,064 Svenska Spel customers selected 8,930 youth associations across 74 sports to share the money. Football secured the largest sum at SEK 16m, representing 40% of all donations, while ice hockey received SEK 5.6m for second place and handball SEK 1.8m to clinch third.
2021 marks the ninth year in a row that Gräsroten has awarded a multi-million-krona sum to youth sports organisations, amounting to almost half-a-billion krona in total. Björn Eriksson, Chairman of the Swedish Sports Confederation, believes it is important now, more than ever, to encourage young people to participate in sport.
“Every krona that goes to our sports associations, not least now after the pandemic, is an important investment so that they can continue to contribute to public health and the community,” said Eriksson.
“The fact that Gräsroten is reaching more and more associations spread across the country is very gratifying and contributes to creating conditions for the associations all over the country.”
A similar sentiment was echoed by Daniel Berglind, Associate Professor at the Department of Global Public Health at Karolinska Institutet, who considers it important to get kids moving to mitigate negative consequences down the line.
He commented: “We have research data that clearly shows how poor fitness in adolescence has negative effects on health later in life. Physical inactivity is a serious negative trend that has been going on for several years and participation in organised sports decreased sharply during the pandemic.
“More measures and more support for sports associations to get more children and young people moving are important to bring about a positive change. Getting young people to participate in organised sports has a positive effect on fitness, which can have a measurable effect on public health later in life.”
