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.
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.
[citation needed] Following the World War II, there was an acute competitiveness in all types of sports (i.e. football, ice hockey, basketball, etc.)
[citation needed] City represented and sports discipline are given in parentheses.