This report released today by the Danish Sports Confederation (DIF) reveals growing membership numbers in Danish football (soccer), swimming and gymnastics, while sports like handball, badminton and tennis see pretty much equivalent declines.
The 10 biggest sports in Denmark in 2011
- Football 356,754 (+13,799)
- Golf 157,496 (-588)
- Swimming 146,103 (+9,515)
- Gymnastics 129,876 (+5,086)
- Handball 113,323 (-1,605)
- Badminton 90,967 (-3,597)
- Workers’ Sport 79,032 (+4,716)
- Equestrianism 73,023 (-1,214)
- Tennis 60,414 (-2,127)
- Sailing 56,624 (-1,663)
(numbers in parenthesis is change compared to 2010)
The ambition is to have 100.000 more Danes doing sports by the end of 2013 compared to 2010-numbers, piloted by 20 development projects including new federations and projects focusing on more members in existing federations. Football (soccer) has seen the biggest growth in sheer numbers, while swimming has the fastest growth rate among the biggest sports.
The results from the annual membership registration show that DIF’s 61 federations now have 1,734,094 members in total, which is 13,494 members more than the year before. This is a small number compared to the 13,799 in football alone, and 28,400 in football, swimming and gymnastics combined, so there seems to be more a shift towards these sports from other sports, rather than recruitment of new members of sport in general.
See DIF Statistics for more details.
