Albanian
sport has a long and glorious history. Even if it is a small
country Albania and the Albanian people stand out
for their love and great passion for sport. All sports are practiced
in Albania,also thanks to the climatic and environmental conditions
of the country. Albania has a very young population: about
30% of the population are under 20 and this means that about 1 million people out of 3.5 are young and therefore fond
of sport. The critical years of transition from a totalitarian
society to a democratic one had a complex influence on sport
in Albania. On the one hand, the intensive democratization
of the society created the possibilities for a natural and
profound development of sport, but, on the other, the inevitable problems
brought about by these radical change processes
caused the decrease of the importance of sport both to the
State and to the society.
Neverthless, there is a wider participation of the private sector in sport and the benefits are quite tangible. The most loved sport in Albania is soccer, followed by combat
sports and all the others. Soccer rouses a greater level of interest from the public, the media and the businesses. Albania has made considerable improvements
in this sport and if once he used to participate only formally in the
European and World competitions, this participation
has now become a primary objective. Besides soccer, also basket ball
and volley ball are very popular. In these sports several
Albanian clubs achieved great results in the past,
especially as for volley ball, the Albanian clubs were placed
amongst the top four in Europe.
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