Brussels blog

Now that Greece has dealt with its fiscal emergency, it can turn its attention to another impending crisis: the physical fitness crisis.

A new survey published by the European Commission reveals that Greece scores at the bottom – along with Bulgaria and Italy – of a ranking of member states by sports participation. Just 3 per cent of Greeks play sports regularly, a fact that woud surely make the ancients pole vault in their graves. By contrast, Ireland came top of table with 23 per cent, closely trailed by the Nordic countries.

Greece also had the highest number of participants who reported never playing a sport at all – some 67 per cent. That compares with 39 per cent for the EU average, and suggests that Greeks do not consider street protests to be a recreational sport.

Apparently the Lisbon Treaty, among its myriad other features, also gives the European Commission new authority over European sports. Hence the Commission  study, which precedes a larger sports policy document to be published later this year. (Will the Commission call for sanctions against member states that do not meet Brussels’ aerobics targets?)

The report is filled with strange, but possibly revelatory nuggets. For example, while Swedes and Cypriots are big fans of health clubs, the French and the Hungarians apparently detest them. But why?

For the Italian press, the burning question was how the football-mad country could fare so well in the world’s most popular sport while suffering such low participation rates? Fortunately, Michel Platini, the French football legend, was in Brussels in his current capacity as UEFA president, and willing to share his observations. “I don’t know if they do a lot of sport,” he said of the Italians, ”but they certainly talk about it a lot.”