Football is cautiously positive about the government's investment

In the document was a letter directed at sports in Sweden, more precisely the top leagues in football and ice hockey.

"A project must be carried out to strengthen the competitiveness of the top leagues in Swedish elite football and elite hockey.

The government will start a special project for the competitiveness of the top leagues".

But some details were not included. 

Mats Enquist is the general secretary of Swedish Elite Football (Sef), the organization for men's football's elite clubs in the Allsvenskan and Superettan.

He is positive about the signal the government is sending out.

But exactly what the result will be is difficult to say, as they have not yet met to discuss any content.

- It can be about legislation to tax issues to other things that are specifically linked to these types of large competitive leagues.

The idea is great, but it is difficult to answer what it will bring, says Mats Enquist to SVT Sport.

Enquist says that they have long tried to get the attention of politicians, especially during the tough period during the corona pandemic.

- We have spent a lot of time processing the political parties and tried to highlight the problem that we, as large commercial leagues, are a large industry and not just easy to compare with the broad sports.

The specific needs we have are not really captured and it is positive that you are signaling something, but I have no idea at the moment the value of that.

Do you see any risk in politics stepping in and taking a stand on these issues?

- No, I think, on the contrary, that we need it, if I'm being really honest.

There are too many different interests within the whole sport.

We could look at completely different issues than what we would come up with together via national sports, they have a lot of other things that they have to discuss.

Enquist gets the nod

Tomas Hoszek is general secretary of Elite Soccer Women, which represents the clubs in the Women's Allsvenskan and Elitettan.

He agrees with Enquist that politics...

- I think that politics has gotten involved far too little over the years, because sports have worked well and the non-profit activities in Sweden have been a driving force and popular movement that we have.

Then it has been thought that "they can manage enough, we focus on other issues instead".

Hoszek also says that major problems such as the energy issue and the pandemic have caused non-profit activities to take a beating.

Which brought the issues up on the agenda.