The rain has stopped in time for training and Malmö FF Women are doing their best. Their session will take place on the club’s old pitch, but on Saturday their Elitettan campaign will start a few meters away on the main pitch of the Eleda Stadium. It will be a special occasion: their first match in Sweden’s second tier after promotion, with around 2,000 spectators. They will face opponents who were once no strangers to a bit of glamour. Earlier this century, few in Europe could rival Umeå IK, who won the UEFA Women’s Cup twice and finished runners-up three times. Football has changed since their last final in 2008 and it would be a great achievement for any Swedish side, let alone Umeå, to reach those heights again.
Related: Moving the goalposts | ‘Nobody knew about us’ – Brann quits for Barcelona test in Champions League
While the players train, Håkan Wifvesson concludes an intensive day of discussion. “We, the Scandinavian countries, have been the strongest in the world,” said Wifvesson, chairman of Malmö’s city rival and multiple title winner Rosengård, to a packed crowd in the modern stadium. “I think we need to make a new plan on how we get back to that position.”
All present agree that women’s football in Scandinavia, Finland and Iceland is at a crossroads. Clubs, associations and other stakeholders have gathered here at a conference organized by Malmö and Rosengård with the aim of charting a new path forward for the sport in a region that was once groundbreaking. Sweden and Norway in particular were once considered the gold standard, but are outdated in many respects. They were ahead of their time in developing as a social, cultural force, but larger countries and economies have outpaced them, seriously damaging their competitiveness.
The only Scandinavian club to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League, the successor to the UEFA Women’s Cup, since 2009-10 is Sweden’s Tyresö, who reached the final in 2014 but went bankrupt the same year. Although Sweden has reached five World Cup or European Championship finals and Norway eight, this has not happened since 2013. Only Denmark, lesser known but runners-up at the 2017 European Championship, has dealt a blow to the region since then. The Danes have put themselves forward to organize the 2029 European Championship together with Sweden and everyone involved would rather show off healthy sport.
Lise Klaveness, the president of the Norwegian Football Federation, is among those addressing delegates at Eleda. “We need to fix the foundation,” she told a panel that also included former Rosengård and current Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall. She then argues that the region must maintain its distinctive points while entering a new era.
“This is a very important moment for us,” she told the Guardian. “We were early in our development and now we cannot give up; we have to get on the train because we have been in the station for 50 years. I really believe that our Nordic values of club structure, of grassroots, can be profitable, but we risk being left behind while innovation takes place elsewhere.”
The need for investment is a recurring theme of the day, with Eidevall among those highlighting its urgency. Ever since the traditional powers of the men’s game in England, Spain and France, to name just three, started pumping money into the women’s divisions, financial inequality has become stark. Clubs in Sweden and Norway are largely owned by their supporters, which presents an additional risk factor for potential investors. A sacred democratic force can also be seen as a hindrance, but some feel that the profile of women’s football is changing perceptions.
“We have companies in our sponsorship that wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have a women’s team,” says Niclas Carlnén, Malmö’s general manager. “I see this being one of the decision points when they extend their contract. It’s not as simple as putting men’s or women’s money into it: you need a holistic view of the club and what you stand for, and that’s what sponsors invest in. Then I think it is sustainable.”
Klaveness sees further hope in the fact that Norwegian club Brann, who reached the quarter-finals of the Women’s Champions League this year, can tell a similar story of attracting lucrative sponsorship through a commitment to equality. There is consensus that this money should be spent on development and facilities, rather than on attempts to lure back expensive foreign stars. The days of Marta, formerly of Umeå and Rosengård, gracing the Damallsvenskan and his peers may be long gone, but relying on the unique advantages of the Nordic countries could pay off in the longer term. “We can invest in infrastructure and create people,” says Rikke Rønholt, panelist and board member of the Danish National Olympic Committee. “What if our strength was that our players were simply smarter and more mature?”
Participation among girls is not a problem, but the pathways to a career, whether playing or coaching, are generally inadequate and attrition between the ages of 16 and 19 remains high. The talent is still plentiful: Scandinavian players have easily reached the level of clubs such as Chelsea and Barcelona, for whom Swedish international Fridolina Rolfö scored last year’s Champions League winner. However, increasing the pool of intelligent players who can earn a living in their own country remains an ambition.
Klaveness hopes the conference will establish formal collaborations between the countries and perhaps reach an agreement to better utilize each other’s talent pools. “We need to maintain our sustainability, but also shake things up a bit,” she says. “We also need innovation, energy and excitement. Our market is not large and we need to grow it.”
Carlnén has big plans for Malmö. The history of women’s football in the city is complex: Rosengård, for whom he once coached goalkeepers and later became CEO, was formed from the first incarnation of Malmö Women. Malmö, the current men’s champions, created a new women’s division in 2019: its members voted to rise through the divisions rather than accommodate another local club. They have done this without losing a single match and it is only a matter of time before they compete with Rosengård in the top flight and trade blows in a derby that should further stoke local interest. “We have the same vision as our men’s club: to be the best in Sweden, one of the leading clubs in Scandinavia and established in Europe,” he says.
No one here believes that a magic wand will reverse the trend that has accelerated over the past decade. There are voices in the room that see times getting tougher; those who think the best-case scenario is for clubs to establish themselves as viable player dealers in preparation for the day when high transfer fees become commonplace. Klaveness, runner-up in the UEFA Women’s Cup while playing for Umeå in 2007 when Alex Scott scored a dramatic winner for Arsenal, sees the difficulties but believes a relentless pace could see history repeat itself.
“When you see the economies of the countries that are now going all in, you can’t say that we will have Champions League winners from the north every year,” she says. “But I think it is very realistic that we can be a challenger. If we have the visionary, strategic desire to take Scandinavian football to the next level, we can be a player again.”