The table illustrates the shift in the proportion of individuals involved in seven various sports in a specific European country between 1999 and 2009.
Overall, while football remained the most popular sport throughout the period, its participation rate declined steadily. In contrast, golf saw a notable rise, especially in the final five years. In addition, tennis, golf, and yoga witnessed an upward trend in the percentage of participants, while those in swimming, volleyball, and basketball declined.
As seen from the data, it can be noticed that the rate of football players was the highest in seven sports, recording 57% in 1999; however, this figure decreased steadily to 52% in 2004. The share of people joining swimming rose marginally, climbing from 32% to 34% in 2004; meanwhile, basketball’s ratio dropped from 26% to 25%. Tennis and volleyball began at lower levels, only 25% and 17% respectively; however, those figures rose to 30% and 20% respectively in 2004. Yoga and golf were less favourable sports in this period, while yoga’s rate remained unchanged at 10% from 1999 to 2004, the percentage of golf players rose slightly to 13%.
In the last 5 years of the time-survey, this proportion of people participating in football dropped drastically, decreasing to 48% in 2009. Meanwhile, the rate of volleyball and basketball players also experienced a steady decrease to 18% in volleyball and 24% in basketball. The proportion of swimmers remained stable in the last 5 years at 34%, while tennis and yoga rose by 3% for each category. The share of the golf players surged sharply to 17% in 2009.