Could football be the most followed sport in Finland

The biggest transfer price for a player moving out of Finnish teams was announced this week. The transfer fee 2,5 million euros made me think is it possible that football becomes bigger sport than ice hockey in Finland if money keeps on flowing to football. Recently there has been also other big transfers in Finnish football around million euros which are not happening in ice hockey. Also Finnish football teams have been earning money by playing in UEFA competitions. The capacity of football stadiums are still overall smaller than ice hockey stadiums. Also the financial statements from last completed season 2024 - 2025 from sports teams in Helsinki and Kuopio indicate that ice hockey is bigger sport than football. Ice hockey team of Helsinki called HIFK had turnover 18,7 million euros and made 230K losses. The football team of Helsinki called HJK had turnover 11,4 million euros and made 312K losses. Ice hockey team of Kuopio called Kalpa had turnover 12,2 million euros and made profit 308K euros. Football team of Kuopio called KuPS had turnover 9,1 million euros and made profit 3,4 millions. These figures make sports look like a lucrative business in Kuopio but the reality is that KuPS has made cumulative 20 million euro losses in the past 10+ years. At least the top teams in Finnish football have received remarkable transfer fees and if they keep on making remarkable transfers and attracting bigger crowds they have a chance to reach ice hockey teams and go past them. 

Thoughts on VAR

FIFA world cup 2026 champion is Spain. The tournament is over and refereeing decisions were in the headlines even though video assisted refereeing (VAR) was supposed to clarify decision making of referees, remove controversial decisions and help referees to make fair decisions. VAR was introduced to Fifa World Cup in Russia on 2018 and is working much better now but it has not removed controversial refereeing decisions. 

I follow international football with VAR and Finnish league football without VAR. As a spectator I don't feel that Finnish football is unfair or unwatchable without VAR. The rules of football simply let room for referees to make their own interpretation with or without VAR. The rules of football just can lead to a "wrong" team to win and make supporters of one team angry. As one goal has such a big impact in football often winning team might not be a better team based on events in the match. Spain was clearly better than Argentina in World cup final 2026 and VAR was not needed to determine the winner.

I believe that the rules of football which leaves space for interpretation is actually good for football and has helped it to grow so big sport. The controversial decisions makes the game more emotional. The players and the fans get emotional. The press gets headlines to write about. There is a reason to watch again controversial events. Many other sports are more fair like tennis and athletics where the winner is very rarely questioned because of refereeing. 

Sorry for winning

Konsta Helenius scored winning goal on overtime against Switzerland and secured the ice hockey world championship to Finland. The commentator Jani Alkio erupts celebrating the goal but soon after the celebrations he says "Anteeksi Sveitsi" and expert commentator Jesse Joensuu first word after the goal is "Anteeksi". Both Finnish commentators apologize by saying "I'm sorry" in Finnish. The goal was fair, there was no controversial decision by the referee. The whole match was fair without big controversies but still commentators felt like they had to say sorry. Is it that nowadays people apologize victories in sports because the losing players get dissapointed. It made it sound like that Finnish commentators wished that Switzerland wins after two defeated finals. I'm sure that if the players of Finland would feel that much sympathy towards the opponent they would have no chance to win a match. 

Thoughts on AI

AI has been in headlines. AI company Anthropic is growing faster than any company before. Data centers are built in Finland and people are worried that it will raise the electricity prices for consumers.

I'm impressed how good pictures and video AI can create. Other strength of AI is coding so soon anyone can be a developer. People are interacting with AI instead of people. I wonder can some people prefer more AI interaction than human interaction. You can solve problems with AI but will it take away the gratification of problem solving.

Huge gym in Espoo

 

Loft gym

Yesterday I went to a huge gym with 3000 square meters space in Espoo. The entrance was easy to find but the first impression was dissapointing because you have to walk up a dull staircase few floors up before you reach the main lobby with nice atmosphere. For such a big gym it was surprising to see just few showers and no sauna in the dressing room. The gym is an old office floor so the ceiling is not high. There is a big variety of machines and I could try out machines which I hadn't tried before. Also big functional training area but no group training room. There was mirrors only in the dumbell section. I would need more training sessions in the gym to give proper review but based on the first impression I wouldn't give 5 stars. 

Reading deadline

I started writing down the titles of the books I read about 10 years ago. Since then I have read 121 books. The most of the books I have borrowed from library and I have noticed that the loan time gives me a good deadline to finish the books. For example best seller books have a loan time of two weeks which pushes me to read more and finish the book faster in two weeks as regular loan time is one month. I bought the first book of an author whose blog I have been reading many years. It took me over two years to finish the book and in the meantime I read over 20 books from library. The same author published his second book when I had not yet finished the first book. I managed to borrow the second book from library and finished reading the second book before the first book. Good real life examples how deadlines make me read more.

KuPS making history

KuPS is the best Finnish football team at the moment. They have won two Finnish Championships in row and made history by being the first Finnish team qualifying from the Conference group stage which meant winter outdoor match in - 14 degrees in February.  The club had a great season also financially by earning over 5 million prize money from UEFA and 3 million from transfer fees. As a KuPS supporter I have been delighted for the wins and looking forward for a bright future as stadium project is also moving forward in Kuopio. KuPS has still plenty of work to grow their fan base and attract more spectators. This season also Bodo/Glimt has proved that a club from small town from north can compete against big clubs by qualifying to top 16 in Champions league. 

Housing market crisis in Finland

Housing prices have been going down and not many new houses are built. I wrote a blog post 2,5 years ago if it would make sense for me to buy a home instead of renting. The conclusion was that it didn't make sense financially and now after housing prices have gone down, the decision to not buy has been a good one. Today I checked that the same size apartment in the same address is available for 250k so the price has lowered 50k. Now monthly down payments for a 250k mortgage of 30 years with 2,8 interest rate would be 1 032 EUR. Adding the monthly maintaining costs it would mean paying every month 1 268 EUR. That is slightly above my rent so buying would make more sense now. People are wondering will the prices of homes keep on going lower, better. Or if you believe the prices will start going up, it's a good time to buy now.