Sport Left on the Bench in the Election Campaign

Sport remains on the bench in Sweden’s election campaign, and that is dismaying. The country’s largest popular movement has found little space in the political debate, even as the Swedish Sports Confederation pushes for an additional billion kronor each year.

The need is broad. Swedish sport is struggling with a shortage of facilities, exclusion in disadvantaged areas and a lack of investment in elite sport. The Swedish Sports Confederation, known as RF, has gone on the offensive to draw attention to those problems, but the political response during the campaign has been almost nonexistent.

That silence is difficult to understand when sport brings together more than three million members in roughly 18,000 associations across the country. Yet, as usual, sports policy has ended up on the bench in the election debate.

This is a column by Anders Lindblad. The views expressed are the writer’s own.