CSR in Finnish Football

Sammanfattning: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a prevalent topic in the world of sports. The term has only recently been introduced to the Finnish football scene, thus making it a relatively new concept to be utilized. It has been argued that football clubs in Finland have varied motivation and participation rates in terms of CSR. Most clubs have incorporated CSR in a widely spread area of interest, with the focus mostly centralized in the well-being of children and youth. To investigate to what degree and how the CSR work is communicated by the football clubs in Veikkausliiga in Finland, a website research was conducted and league tables similar to those in the world of football were created to visualize the different levels. The results indicated similar results to previous research. The category CSR in society was most common and most focused on the well-being of children and young people. Contrary to previous research, the environment was not the focus of most clubs in their communication. It was also discovered that the participation and communication levels drastically varied between the clubs, as well as the way or wording of the communication. Most of the clubs showcased concrete evidence of their involvement incorporated with CSR rather than just portraying words that could bolster their image. The league tables make it evident that there were two clubs above the rest in terms of their communication and involvement in CSR, HJK and FC Lahti.