The athletes of the Finnish Ski Association have brought 75 percent of Finland’s medals in the two previous Olympic Games: six out of eight. Despite this, the media attention received by the organization in recent years has been related to the sector where the Ski Federation has not had enough medals to distribute: the economy.
On Tuesday, Urheilu reported that in the beginning of the World Cup season, the athletes who are selected to participate will have to pay a maximum of 500 euros deductible for each shift. At the same time, when there is a pre-season training season ahead, to which the association has not had much to contribute due to its financial situation, the athletes and their representatives will of course go on tours.
There is a reason for everything. Kun, a member of the management team of the Eerikkilä Sports and Tourism Center Sirpa Korkatti elected March 23 Mark Haapasalmen after becoming chairman of the Ski Federation, the figures for the fiscal year ending at the end of October 2023 were presented to the federal council at the same time.
Purchase debts of over a million
In their deep blackness, they are looking for an equal in the history of Finnish sports organizations. At the group level, the Ski Federation made a loss of almost two million euros. Of that, the association’s share was 1.288 million, and Nordic Ski Finland, i.e. the commercial company of the association, about 651,000 euros. The equity of the association had gone into the red by around three million euros, the commercial company’s around one million euros.
In the appendices of Hiihtoliitto ry’s financial statements, there were still open purchase debts of 1.073 million at that time.
The figures should be reflected in the fact that when the organization initially planned its exceptionally long financial period from June 2022 to the end of October 2023, the goal was a moderate profit of 157,000 euros.
These points of departure were known to Korkat, who had been influential in the board of the Ski Federation for a long time, when the woman put her name in the presidential contest. For their own reasons, the general did not want to participate Timo KivinenDirector of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehnformer head coach of the United Petter Kukkonen or the main owner of the St1 energy company Mika Anttonen.
When Korkatti, as expected, was crowned in Jyväskylä as the new trustee of the tradition organization, he knew what to expect.
The struggle for survival is underway
– At that moment, it was not about Finland’s most desired presidency. I’d say not even second most wanted. One person from the core of the sport said directly that I am a crazy woman, Korkatti recalls half a year later in an interview with Urheilu in Helsinki.
Korkatti has taken his “right and left hand” with him, i.e. acting executive director, head of administration Marleena Valtasolan – a financial management and control professional. Valtasola, who had already spent a long time working with numbers in the ski association, was recruited back in May, and the assignment soon became clear. The whole organization was and is fighting for survival.
Korkatti digs up an example of the personnel address revealed by Urheilu last November. In the petition, the people of the skiing union expressed their work sickness in an exceptional way, which was primarily related to the union’s executive director, the management system and the management of the organization.
Korkatti does not criticize the union’s former trust managers or operational managers, such as Haapasalme or Ismo from Hämäläwhose activities were primarily meant in the blunt address.
– The well-being of the personnel is the most important thing for the trust management, and we want to quickly get to grips with the grievances referred to in the address, for example by means of a job satisfaction survey. But in recent months, all the time and energy has gone into the fact that there is even an organization that people can be unhappy with.
“Apply for liquidation”
The chairman does not ignore the fact that last spring he and the rest of the trust management were also advised to put their hands up and put the association into liquidation.
– It was the worst scenario and not even impossible in the worst case scenario.
A dramatic solution would have practically meant that Finland would have had to establish a completely new central organization of skiing sports and apply for FIS membership of the International Ski Federation.
All of this could have meant, for example, the dissolution of cooperation and media agreements and at least a gap year from organizing the World Cups, which are vital to the federation’s finances.
Already in the 2023 training season, the skiers of the Ski Association were offered a scarcity of camping and resources, in the midst of which, especially the skiers who focused their training largely in their home country achieved good results.
In the spring of 2024, however, we were in a situation where the Ski Federation had to inform both national team coaches and athletes that what was experienced the previous summer was still an abundance.
The coaches were urged in a straightforward message to quickly ensure their livelihood outside of the Ski Association. United’s head coach Antti Kuisma now remembers that he experienced the situation last spring as a disaster, from which it was only a short step to the last one turning off the lights.
“We couldn’t promise”
– At the same time, elite sports are the Ski Association’s most significant source of income and by far the most significant expense item. During the summer Mika Kojonkoski is a combination of both ski jumping and Jarmo Riski as far as skiing is concerned, he did everything in the background so that the training would have been the best possible even under these conditions. Uncertainty and anger towards us was understandable in the spring, but we couldn’t promise something we couldn’t keep, says Korkatti, who does trust work in the Ski Federation without compensation.
In June, in connection with the Aateli Race, he met the national team skiers in Sotkamo and told them in disgustingly realistic terms where they were really going. At this point, the athletes had already gotten their daily routines in order after the spring panic.
– They thanked you for your honesty, the chairman laughs.
The cost-saving measures in elite sports were carried out, among other things, by further cutting the national team camp, especially for foreign countries, and by shortening the salary payment period of coaches tied to fixed-term employment contracts. A hill coach who worked on a so far contract Kimmo Savolainen left the Ski Association.
The prestigious skiing competitions will be held next spring winter in Trondheim, literally at sea level, which also reduced the need for expensive mountain training.
Nonsensical ski rally
One insider of cross-country skiing believes that plenty of savings could also be found in activities during the competition season.
– Travel of national team coaches to world cups is mostly completely unnecessary. Especially in the Finnish model, where personal trainers are responsible for the results. And then that absurd ski rally. Under no circumstances should one athlete be allowed to transport a maximum of 30 pairs to the federation’s peak. Now, in addition to the service truck, there are two packages that drive only skis around Europe. It makes no sense, the insider commented.
Chairman Korkatti admits that the costs of national team maintenance have gotten out of hand, and not only in Finland. For example, a large part of the unpaid invoices found in the appendices of the most recent financial statements are related to maintenance costs.
– In the big picture, the problem of the whole sport is that international success requires such heavy maintenance investments, admits Korkatti.
In August, the Ski Federation announced surprising news; it decided to liquidate its commercial company Nordic Ski Finland (NSF). The viability of the company would have required such a huge capital investment from the owner, i.e. Hiihtoliitto ry, that it was not seen as realistic.
Marleena Valtasola admits that at the same time, the Ski Federation lost certain value added tax benefits from its business, which can be obtained in a limited liability company, but not in an association.
– We had to contrast maintaining the union’s core functions or capitalizing NSF. Although, of course, we took into consideration the VAT aspect, the priorities turned to ensuring the core issue, i.e. sports activities, Acting. executive director says.
A new black financial statement
The result of the ski association’s most recent fiscal year, 1 November 2023–30 June 2024, will be announced on November 13, and it won’t make the skiers happy, admits the chairman.
– There will be an ugly result, which will be greatly affected by the decline of the NSF. Even so, it is one important step towards the whole being greeted in a deliberate and controlled manner. We are slowly but surely moving towards brighter times.
In the future, the union’s fiscal year will always start on July 1 and end on June 30.
Valtasola worked in the organization of the Ski Federation when the Lahti World Championships in 2017 resulted in a loss of 2.8 million euros, which overshadowed the activities of the entire federation afterwards. It will be shortened for a long time to come, and the loss has always narrowed the union’s financial room for maneuver.
– If Marleena had been brought into the Lahti World Cup project even a year earlier to look over financial discipline and administrative issues, the numbers would have been significantly more positive, says the former executive director who worked with Valtasola for a long time at the Ski Federation Mika Kulmala.
Korkatti and Valtasola are sparring big solutions with the change group, which can also be considered a crisis group, assembled from the board of the Ski Association. They belong to it Mikko Wiren, Tony Kilponen, Lauri Kettunen and Martti Uusitalo.
The union currently does not have a permanent executive director or commercial director Petri Raatikainen – with the least amount of noise – after leaving. According to Korkat, these matters will be taken care of when the more urgent ones have been removed.
National team and world cup visibility is sold by the sales team of the Ski Association. According to Valtasola, in the big picture, the Cups have sold well in the market, the national team visibility still needs a lot of work.
In 2017, the financial result of the World Cup in Lahti was largely down to two things, i.e. the organizing agreement made by the then union management, which was very unfavorable to the union, and the excessive number of people employed in the organization of the competition. In 2029, Lahti will organize the World Cup for the 8th time, and even if these mines could be avoided, the organization is currently not in medal condition, as this text proves.
– In the course of a couple of years, the Skiing Federation must be hit in such a way that we will be able to organize the World Championships from a stable position, Korkatti states.
Missing compass direction
The completely unsuccessful Helsinki Ski Weeks organized at the Olympic Stadium, which had to be stopped after two expensive attempts, has been offered as one of the reasons for the financial spiral of the Ski Federation and the NSF. Expenses have risen in sports across the board anyway.
Still, in front of the Hiihtoliitto Group’s financial figures, one has to ask how operations of this scale and running one of Finland’s most interesting and visible national teams can end up with such a result. What does it require from the operative management and the trust management that supervises this?
Before answering, Korkatti looks in Valtasola’s direction.
– The starting point of all financial management is a real-time situational picture and 100% continuous awareness of where we are, what is possible and what is not. Only that gives you the support to make decisions and plans that are based on facts and not imaginations. Now we have reached such a situation in the Ski Association. It means the beginning of something new, but only the beginning. The direction is now correct.