1982 - First team founded in Sweden

Hi Coach,

right now football in Sweden is in quite a down period. This year only 30 teams managed to finish the season. 5 teams in the highest league, and then 25 others divided into 4 lower divisions. We also have under-19 and under-16 leagues.

the beginning and middle of the nineties was the time when football in Sweden really started to gather some momentum. We were able to watch NFL football on Swedish cable-tv and the Super Bowl was also availible every year. This ended though and what followed was that we didn't get as many new players as before. Many clubs now have financial troubles because of the distance between the clubs and the fact that it is very difficult to get any sponsors for this small sport here. Hopefully things will get better in the next couple of years, 'cause once again we get NFL on television here, MNF and the Super Bowl, and more and more sports bars are showing NFL on sundays.

We do have some pretty good players though, 4 Swedes have played in the NFL Europe these last years and now we have an O-lineman set to start at LG for Temple Owls this year. Most of the knowledge about football here in Sweden have come from Americans coming over to coach here. And most of the top clubs have had Americans over to play QB. In fact no team has ever won the Swedish title with a Swedish quarterback. A shame really, but this may change this year as the top team this year, the Carlstad Crusaders have a Swedish QB.

Well that was a little about football in Sweden, thanks for a great site, almost to much information ;-)