Swedish football league system
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Swedish football league system is a series of interconnected leagues for club football in Sweden which is controlled by the Swedish Football Association and consists of 276 teams in 22 leagues divided in five levels. Below those five levels, additional regional levels numbered six to ten exist but are controlled by the regional associations and not by the nationwide association.
[edit] Current system
The table below shows how the current system works. For each division, its Swedish name and number of clubs is given. It is not certain that each division is a feeder of teams to the division that lie directly above it and relegates teams to the divisions that lie directly below it, even though this usually is the case. The system used is new for the 2006 season and on; the new feature being the additional two Division 1 series on the 3rd level, pushing down Division 2 and Division 3 a level on the ladder.
However, in the 2007 season, the Allsvenskan was expanded from 14 clubs to 16, and only one team was relegated from the top division. This differed from the usual system, in which two teams are directly relegated, replaced by the top teams from the second division, Superettan, and one team goes to the relegation/promotion playoff versus the third positioned team in Superettan. In 2007, three teams from Superettan were promoted, meaning that the first division contains sixteen teams from 2008.
| Level | League(s)/Division(s) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Allsvenskan 16 clubs |
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| 2 | Superettan 16 clubs |
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| 3 | Division 1 Norra 14 clubs |
Division 1 Södra 14 clubs |
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| 4 | Division 2 Norrland 12 clubs |
Division 2 Norra Svealand 12 clubs |
Division 2 Östra Svealand 12 clubs |
Division 2 Mellersta Götaland 12 clubs |
Division 2 Västra Götaland 12 clubs |
Division 2 Södra Götaland 12 clubs |
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| 5 | Division 3 Norra Norrland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Mellersta Norrland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Södra Norrland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Norra Svealand 12 clubs |
Division 3 Östra Svealand 12 clubs |
Division 3 Västra Svealand 12 clubs |
Division 3 Nordöstra Götaland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Mellersta Götaland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Nordvästra Götaland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Sydvästra Götaland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Sydöstra Götaland 12 clubs |
Division 3 Södra Götaland 12 clubs |
| 6–10 | Division 4 through Division 8 are divisions administered by the various regional football associations. | |||||||||||
