Organizing Sports around the Workplace - some Experiences from Scandinavian Company Sport

There are different ways of placing sports in social life, and the workplace is one of them. The Scandinavian countries are internationally renowned for their particular development of company sport. This is linked to the dynamics of the Nordic welfare society and political concern about ‘public health’. On the basis of recent Danish research, current practices of company sport are examined. There is social change inside company sport, and new strata demand more and wider offers of sport in the workplace. Side by side with sport in specialized clubs, sport in local-cultural ‘popular’ associations and sport in commercial institutes, sport in the workplace, thus, has a future. This challenges the traditional division of everyday life under capitalist conditions: collective work here, private leisure there. People's health as a human right under the conditions of developing capitalism changes the agenda, also for sports.