Today, Sweden's football elite gather at the Football Gala to award prizes to the industry's best players.
But no prize for this year's most equal working conditions will hardly be awarded at the football gala. Because when it comes to equality, the football industry is the worst in the league.
Most clearly, it is when it comes to combining the job of being a parent. A study done by the Union shows that half of the male soccer pros are parents, while only three percent of women are.
When the gala is gathered, many children may be proud of their successful fathers, but almost no child can see their mother being praised at the football gala.
In fact, very few men need to be faced with opting out of their football career in favor of becoming a parent. Is it reasonable then that female soccer professionals have to do it? Should professional sports even place higher demands on women than business and party politics do?
Our answer is no .
Professional football is a profession. And no profession should mean being disadvantaged based on gender. No one should have to choose between forming a family or having a job.
But that is the reality for women who play elite football.
Fewer than half of Sweden's female soccer pros cannot live off their overall income from football. This means that they must have several jobs to get their finances together.
The Union's study Uneven game plan released earlier this year shows that the different economic conditions have far-reaching effects on the health and privacy of football pros. One of these is precisely the family formation.
While men state that injuries and lack of motivation are the main reason why they will one day stop playing football, women state that finances and a desire to form a family are their primary reason for quitting.
And the girls know about the difficulty of reconciling family life and football careers already know the young teens. Its sad.
In an equal working life, there is room for pregnancy and parental leave. At this point, it is obvious rights in the rest of working life. Of course, the same should apply in elite sports and professional football.
Just as both male and female soccer pros need to be absent from matches and training in injury, female sports professionals who choose to have children must be able to be absent during pregnancy and parental leave to return to their club and national team.
A pregnancy is also more predictable, and can be easier to plan for, than an unforeseen injury that happens suddenly.
It's time for professional football to join the equality match.