The ESWAM is still young, but its timing is not. Across Europe, sport is being asked to carry more weight than ever: healthier communities, stronger social cohesion, safer public space, more resilient local economies and a response to widening inequalities in health and participation. At the same time, the landscape of sport is changing underneath our feet. Traditional clubs remain essential, yet they no longer represent the full picture. Informal groups organise via apps and group chats. Entrepreneurs build new offerings that don’t fit old structures. Municipalities are expected to provide space, quality facilities and inclusion while budgets tighten and expectations keep rising.

In that tension, ESWAM’s role becomes clear: bring the reality of cities into the European arena and bring European ambition back to the neighbourhood level where it works. ESWAM’s involvement in SHARE 2.0, and the way it actively contributes to the European Commission’s agenda, is a working position. SHARE 2.0 is designed to strengthen collaboration, knowledge exchange and implementation capacity across European sport and related areas, including health, innovation, sustainability and society. ESWAM’s presence inside that ecosystem signals something important: Europe increasingly needs sparring partners who can connect strategy with streets, frameworks with facilities and goals with governance.

At the Brussels gathering in September where ESWAM shared its story, the message wasn’t “look at us.” It was “listen to the cities.” Because the future of European sport, whatever model we choose to call it, will be built or broken in municipal reality. And the questions ESWAM brought forward were practical, urgent and slightly uncomfortable in the best way, because they force us to make choices.

The first question is deceptively simple: how do we facilitate sport in a new European sport model, an ecosystem rather than in a narrow, club-only system? Europe’s sport model has strong traditions and values, but the way people move, join and belong is diversifying fast. The ecosystem lens acknowledges that sport lives across schools, public space, workplaces, health programmes, community initiatives and digital communities. It also acknowledges that participation isn’t only measured by club membership anymore. If policy continues to treat “sport” as one organisational format, it will miss where growth is actually happening and where exclusion quietly hides. The European Sport Model is losing its relevance, it's time to rethink this model.

That leads straight into the second question: how do we make sport affordable and inclusive? “Inclusion” often becomes a slogan until you zoom in on the barriers. Costs rise: membership fees, equipment, transport, facility access. Time becomes a privilege. Confidence becomes a gatekeeper, especially for people who don’t feel they “belong” in traditional settings. Inclusion isn’t one challenge, it’s many, overlapping ones: socio-economic inequality, gender gaps, disability access, cultural norms, language, mental health and the simple absence of nearby safe spaces to be active. Cities see this daily. They also see what works: proximity, low-threshold entry points, community ambassadors, blended offers that combine formal and informal activity and programmes designed with specific groups.

But inclusion also depends on something deeply tangible: facilities. The third question ESWAM raised lands here: how do we ensure quality facilities for all? The European conversation can drift into the conceptual, but municipalities deal in walls, floors, lighting, safety standards, booking systems, maintenance costs and the reality of an ageing facility stock in many regions. Quality facilities aren’t just about elite performance, thhey serve as a backbone of everyday participation. If facilities are poor, overbooked, inaccessible or concentrated in certain neighbourhoods, inclusion becomes impossible no matter how inspiring the strategy sounds. The future demands smarter facility planning, shared use models, better data on utilisation and investment approaches that connect sustainability with accessibility. In a way that “green” upgrades don’t accidentally make access more expensive.

The fourth question might be the most defining for the next decade: how do we support not just traditional clubs, but also entrepreneurs and informal communities in a fragmented sport landscape? Fragmentation can be a weakness, duplication, uneven quality, confusion for citizens, but it’s also a sign of innovation and changing needs. Entrepreneurs can expand reach with new formats, flexible pricing and targeted solutions. Informal communities can engage groups that never walk into a club. Yet both often struggle to connect to municipal systems, facility access, insurance frameworks and funding mechanisms built for traditional structures. The result is a paradox: the very actors who could help sport grow and diversify are often the least supported.