Football Association of Finland

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Finnish. (June 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must follow the LLM translation guideline, revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Finnish Wikipedia article at [[:fi:Suomen Palloliitto]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fi|Suomen Palloliitto}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Football Association of Finland

UEFA
Founded	19 May 1907; 119 years ago (19 May 1907)
Headquarters	Bolt Arena
FIFA affiliation	1908
UEFA affiliation	15 June 1954; 72 years ago (1954-06-15)
President	Ari Lahti
General Secretary	Marco Casagrande
Website	https://www.palloliitto.fi/

The Football Association of Finland (Finnish: Suomen Palloliitto, abbr. SPL; Swedish: Finlands Bollförbund) is the governing body of football and futsal in Finland. It was founded in Helsinki on 19 May 1907.

The SPL organises the men's and women's national football teams, the second to ninth tiers of national football, the Finnish Cup and the Finnish League Cup. The premier division Veikkausliiga is organised by a distinct organisation. The SPL is based in the Finnish capital city of Helsinki.

History

The SPL was founded on 19 May 1907 in a restaurant called Catani in Esplanadi, Helsinki. The founding meeting was attended by representatives of Unitas Sports Club, Stjernan and Polytechnics Sports Club from Helsinki, Viborgs Hockeyklubb from Vyborg, Åbo Idrottsvänner and Turun Jalkapalloseura from Turku and Idrottens Vänner from Kokkola.

The association was the governing body of bandy in Finland until Finland's Bandy Association was founded in 1972. In 1928, it also arranged the first Finland ice hockey championship, before the 1929 establishment of the Finnish Ice Hockey Association, and arranged the first Pesäpallo matches until 1925.

Background

The SPL has more than 1,000 member clubs and approximately 140,000 registered players. The Finnish Gallup survey has indicated that football is a popular pastime with around 500,000 Finns interested in the sport. The SPL is Finland's largest amateur sports federation.

Publications

The association publishes several magazines, including now-defunct monthly magazine Futari.

National teams

• Men's team
• Under-21 team
• Under-19 team
• Under-17 team
• Women's team
• Women's under-20 team
• Women's under-19 team
• Women's under-17 team
• Men's Futsal team
• Men's under-19 Futsal team
• Women's Futsal team

Presidents

• Walter Flander: 1907–1908
• John Catani: 1909
• Uno Westerholm: 1910–1911
• Carolus Lindberg: 1912
• Walter Qvist: 1913–1917
• Erik von Frenckell: 1918–1952
• Juuso Walden: 1953–1963
• Osmo P. Karttunen: 1963–1974
• Ove H. Rehn: 1974–1975
• Jouko Loikkanen: 1975–1983
• Lauri Pöyhönen: 1983–1987
• Pentti Seppälä [fi]: 1987–1997
• Pekka Hämäläinen: 1997–2009
• Sauli Niinistö: 2009–2012
• Markku Lehtola: 2012 (interim)
• Pertti Alaja: 2012–2017
• Markku Lehtola: 2017–2018 (interim)
• Ari Lahti: 2018–present

Hall of Fame

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Football Association of Finland.

• Official website (in Finnish)
• Finland at UEFA.com
• Finland at FIFA.com