Swiss football emerged on the shores of Lake Geneva in the mid-19th century on the heels of a small number of British students and tourists, and quickly caught on in the German-speaking areas. The oldest surviving club in Switzerland is FC St Gallen, founded in 1879.

Professional football

There are two leagues in men's professional football. Switzerland's premier men's football division is the Swiss Super League. The second league is the Swiss Challenge League. Ten teams compete in each of these leagues for the title of league champion. The Super League is one of the most popular and most watched football leagues in Europe.  There is also the Swiss Cup, a tournament that brings together teams both from the two professional leagues (Super League and Challenge League) and teams from amateur leagues.

European and international level

Swiss football clubs have yet to enjoy any major success in European-level tournaments, although clubs like FC Basel and BSC Young Boys regularly qualify for the group stages of the Champions League and Europa League.

Switzerland hosted the World Cup in 1954 and the Euro in 2008, in partnership with Austria. Since 1994, the Swiss national team has regularly participated in the major international tournaments. In 2021, at the 2020 UEFA European Championship, the national team reached the quarter-finals. It was the first time that Switzerland had won a knockout match since 1954!

Switzerland's junior teams regularly qualify for the World Cup and Euros, where they do extremely well. In 2009, the Swiss U17 team won the Junior World Cup.

In 1970, women's football formed its own league with 18 teams and 270 players, and Swiss women took part in their first international matches. Today, Switzerland has more than 25,000 licensed female players and over 500 clubs with women's sections. The Swiss national team is in the top 20 in the FIFA Women's World Rankings.

Switzerland, a nation of football, swissinfo.ch

Switzerland is the sixth most popular ski destination in the world. As well as being a favourite leisure pursuit for many Swiss people, skiing makes a major contribution to the economy of regions like Valais and Graubünden. Zermatt, Adelboden, Davos, Verbier and St Moritz are the most popular Swiss resorts.

The first ski clubs were founded in Glarus (1893), Bern (1900) and Zurich (1901). In the early part of the 20th century, skiers started to flock to places like Davos and St Moritz. With the advent of ski lifts in the 1950s, skiing became a truly national sport, attracting visitors from home and abroad. In the late 1990s, snowboarding also took off, and the number of snowboarders has remained almost constant since 2008, while the number of skiers has grown significantly. Enthusiasm for skiing begins in childhood: traditionally, in winter, schoolchildren spend at least one week in a winter sports camp in the mountains during their compulsory schooling, instead of their usual lessons.

Swiss athletes excel in the downhill competitions and in other winter sport disciplines such as ski jumping and snowboarding. Switzerland is one of the leading nations in the Alpine Skiing World Cup standings, which lists the points of all World Cup skiers. In the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons, it was the leading nation. Marco Odermatt, Lara Gut-Behrami, Michelle Gisin and Beat Feuz are among the best-known Swiss skiers of recent times. Some former Swiss skiers are still considered among the best skiers of all time and set world records that are still standing. Pirmin Zurbriggen, Vreni Schneider and Erika Hess have been involved in the sport for decades, as has Bernhard Russi.

Ski and snowboard tourism, myswitzerland.com

Swiss schools stand by their ski camps

Switzerland is one of the world's leading ice hockey nations. National League games are a major draw. Average match attendance rates are in excess of 7,000. The Bern Ice Skating Club (SC Bern) stadium has the best attendance figures in Europe, averaging 16,000 spectators per match.

The premier ice-hockey division, the National League (formerly National League A – LNA), has 13 teams that play 52 matches per season. The six best teams qualify for a series of playoffs (quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals). The teams in seventh to tenth place then compete for the two remaining places in the best-of-seven play-offs. The Swiss League (National League B or LNB) is Switzerland's second division. It has eleven teams. Third-division ice hockey teams compete in the MySports League.

HC Davos is the most successful club, followed by SC Bern and ZSC Lions. At international level, the ZSC Lions of Zurich won the Champions Hockey League in 2009. A handful of Swiss players also play in the National Hockey League (US and Canada).

In 2009, the Ice Hockey World Championship was held in Bern and Kloten. Davos hosts the annual Spengler Cup, an international tournament founded in 1923. The headquarters of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) is in Zurich.

Field hockey is also played in Switzerland – outside in summer, in sports halls in winter. The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is based in Lausanne.

Spengler Cup

Florence Schelling, the woman at the top of a once male-dominated world