The Women's All-Svenskan stands without a collective agreement: "Worse than ten years ago"

In 2013, the Women's Elite Football Association (EFD) and the Swedish Football Players Association (SFS) signed a collective agreement for women's elite players (women's league and elite team) with a one-year term.

An agreement that the players have lived with ever since.

But after EFD and SFS for several years conducted a dialogue about a new agreement without success, now EFD, with the support of a majority of the clubs in OBOS Damallsvenskan and Elitettan, has taken the decision to terminate the existing agreement in order to give the Employers' Alliance the task of negotiating a new.

Among the players there are concerns about the new agreement.

A proposal that has been highlighted by club management is to remove the income insurance that has been in place.

KIF Örebro's chairman Fredrik Stengard tells Nerikes Allehanda that he would rather spend that money on higher salaries.

- For example, in the agreement you now get an income guarantee for up to 90 percent of your income.

But now it has been proposed that it should change and it would affect those who have it worst in the women's league, says Hedvig Lindahl, a member of the Soccer Players' Association, to SVT Sport.

Risk of being without pay in case of injury

According to the Players' Association's general secretary Magnus Erlingmark, players who injure themselves run the risk of being left without pay in the new agreement.

- If, for example, you have had a previous injury, there is a risk that you will not receive any compensation.

Each case would be investigated individually, he says.

Hedvig Lindahl:

- We always want better opportunities, in any case not worse.

We probably don't require much more compared to how it has been before.

Therefore, negotiations have not started

Tomas Hoszek, general secretary of EFD, does not give much to the criticism:

- To me, it seems very strange that both hockey, handball and other sports are under a sports agreement within the industry, so why wouldn't soccer be under the same system.

I think that's very strange, says Tomas Hoszek, general secretary at EFD, to SVT Sport.

According to Maria Liljedahl, head of negotiations at Arbetgsivaralliansen, they are prepared to start negotiating a new agreement.

But there is one requirement on their part:

- We are an employer's organization and our counterpart in negotiations on elite sports agreements is the Union.

And we only negotiate with "real trade unions" and it is not the players' association.

That is really what is the catch here, that the players' association has to let go of its party position, she says.