Armed Forces (sports society)

The Sports Clubs of the Armed Forces, Physical Culture and Sports Association of the Soviet Armed Forces (Russian: спортивные клубы Армии [СКА] sportivnye kluby Armiy, SKA; Russian: Физкультурно-спортивное объединение Вооружённых Сил СССР, Fizkulturno-sportivnoe obyedinenie Vooruzhonnykh Sil SSSR), also called the Sports Clubs of the Soviet Ministry of Defense or simply Armed Forces or Army were a system of departmental sports clubs and one of the largest sports societies in the USSR.

Established at first within officers' clubs of the Red Army, after the Second World War they were reformed into sports clubs for all ranks in the armed forces. All the sports clubs were supervised by the Sports Committee of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR and the sports committees of military districts and naval fleets, with each district and fleet having its own club.[1] The army clubs were often abbreviated as SKA and previously as SKVO and DO. The largest club was located in Moscow, CSKA Moscow ("C" standing for Central). The military sports clubs had an opportunity to enlist all top athletes of a country due to the mandatory conscription policies in force then.[1]

Alongside the SKA teams in the Soviet Army, each service branch of the Armed Forces maintained service-wide clubs, with component teams coming under district or fleet club supervision.

Following the World War II, there was an acute competitiveness in all types of sports (i.e. football, ice hockey, basketball, etc.) between the Soviet Armed Forces Sports Association clubs and the clubs of the Dynamo representing Soviet security forces (MVD and KGB).