User:Bring back Daz Sampson/Professionalism in Swedish football

Sweden legalised professional football in 1967. The Swedish model led to a preference for a form of "rational amateurism". In 1999 Swedish football clubs were allowed to sell shares, but were subjected to a 50+1 rule by the rules of the Swedish Sports Confederation.

IFK Göteborg reached the 1985–86 European Cup semi-final and won the 1981–82 and 1986–87 editions of the UEFA Cup as a semi-professional team.

In 1988 AIK Fotboll made Johny Murray, Esa Pekonen and Jari Hudd the club's first ever full-time footballers.

In 1989 Malmo FF became the first club in Sweden with an entire squad of full-time professional footballers. However the experiment was not a success and they reverted to the semi-professional status of their Allsvenskan peers in 1994: "It is as if full-time professionalism is not really accepted within the sporting culture of Sweden".

Thomas Ravelli said in March 1991: "Like most players in Sweden I am a part-time footballer. I spend the rest of the week working as a travelling sales manager. It has always been an ambition to become a full-time professional." In 1994 Ravelli's IFK Göteborg team mate Magnus Erlingmark worked as a public relations assistant, while The Times said another team mate Joachim Björklund: "will surely not for long parade his burning pace in part-time football".

Henrik Larsson signed for Helsingborgs IF in 1992: "Then when I was 21 I heard the local semi-pro team, Helsingborgs IF, who were in the first division, were interested [...] I signed immediately for £300 a month without bonuses."

Helsingborgs were still a part-time outfit when they upset Aston Villa in September 1996 and Inter Milan in August 2000.

Part-timers Trelleborgs FF beat Blackburn Rovers F.C. in September 1994, with goalkeeper Ryszard Jankowski their only full-time professional.

Of the 315 players who participated in the 1998 Allsvenskan, fewer than half (147) were full-time professional footballers. Many were students, while just over a quarter (81) had full-time jobs outside football, although this proportion had substantially reduced from previous seasons. Thomas Andersson (footballer, born 1968): At the beginning of my elite career, I worked full time and played football in the evenings. That was the reality in the Allsvenskan at the end of the 80's, and that is how it is for many today who play in the first and second. It was not until I was in my 30s, after the 1998 season, that I was able to live on football.

Swedish men's football remained amateur until the mid-1990s, but most players at Allsvenskan clubs had turned professional by 2008. Relatively high taxation in Sweden made it harder for clubs to attract foreign professionals.

When Magnus Pehrsson coached GAIS in the 2008 Allsvenskan, making all the club's players into full-time professionals was one of several changes he introduced.

In 2018 most Allsvenskan players were full-time professionals, earning an average monthly salary of almost SEK 100,000. 20 years previously the league had been mainly semi-professional.

The Unionen trade union reported in May 2019 that 90% of top level male footballers in Sweden earned their living from the sport, against only 50% of top level female players.