Finnish Ski Association to lay off nine employees, including managing director Janne Piirainen
Jari Piirainen
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The Finnish Ski Association is to reduce the size of its organisation due to financial difficulties. As a result, nine posts will be axed.
The association’s board discussed the drastic economic measures at its Friday meeting in Tampere.
Through reducing the number of positions within the organisation, the Ski Association aims to free up funds from fixed expenses to sporting activities.
The objective is to reduce expenditure by about EUR 500,000 per year.
On the skiing side, the positions of director of cross-country skiing (Per-Ole Lindell), field director, youth director, and one coach will be terminated.
In ski jumping and Nordic combined the offices of director (Janne Marvaila) and one coach will also be axed.
Furthermore, the Association will no longer have use for a managing director (Janne Piirainen), office manager, or chief of communication.
Depending on the method of calculation, the Finnish Ski Association currently employs 42 or 43 full-time personnel.
The board also decided that the fixed-term employment contracts would not be renewed. “We decided that a substantial one-time reduction is better than continuous moaning”, argued Piirainen, while presenting the Board with the adjustment programme for 2009-2010.
Tasks within the renewed organisation will be reshuffled in the spring of 2009.
“We cleared a lot of room for a new way of thinking and a fresh organisation model. Only in the spring will the follow-up plans be drawn”, Piirainen added.
The managing director will be replaced as the head of the organisation by an executive or administrative director. One thing is clear: Piirainen will not continue with the Ski Association.
”A fairly hard-working managing director, who is used to working under pressure, seeks employment”, Piirainen laughed sarcastically.
The Ski Association’s finances have been in a parlous state for some time.
The recent years’ doping suspicions and the related bad publicity have made it difficult for the organisation to find sponsors.
The weakening of the US dollar has also rendered things cumbersome for the association.
The television rights contract with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is dollar-based. The downhill slide of the currency has eaten EUR 1.2 million from the ski-jumpers’ budget since 2004.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 10.11.2008 - TODAY |
 Finnish Ski Association to lay off nine employees, including managing director Janne Piirainen |
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