SUPPORTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF HARMONIZED SPORTS STATISTICS IN ALBANIA

Sport has a significant impact on the economy, both locally/nationally and globally, ranging from job creation and income generation to tourism and trade promotion. The basic approach to calculating the economic effects of sport across the EU is by expanding national Input-Output tables by sport-related sectors. The creation of a national Input-Output table for Albania will mean that all sports content will be extracted from the original sectors to form additional sectors, such as the construction of sports facilities, marketing, production of sports equipment, as example mechanisms that combine sport and economic development. The main goal of this study is to create a stable data base to serve as a reference point for subsequent analyses and generate a comprehensive assessment of the size of the added value related to sports and employment sectors in Albania. This study can also encourage methodological discussion between countries in the region and EU countries, which in turn can increase the quality and comparability of national assessments through SSA. The data collected for this study show that the responsible institutions in the country for the sports sector do not possess the mechanisms to extract all the figures related to sports while maintaining the structure of the National Accounts, which serve as the main point of reference for the drafting of economic policies at the national macro level and are normally kept by a country's statistical office.