Swedish Football
The Swedish football pyramid consists of a total of 10 tiers. The Swedish FA controls the top 5 tiers whilst control of the bottom 5 tiers are delegated to local associations. The top two tiers, Allsvenskan and Superettan are full national leagues, whilst the rest are split into regions to reduce travel requirements.
The Svenska Cupen is the national cup of Sweden, which any team in the country can qualify for.
Allsvenskan and Superettan – Promotion and Relegation
There are 16 teams in the Allsvenskan and each team play each other home and away giving a 30 game season. The bottom two in the league are automatically relegated whilst the 3rd bottom team must go through a playoff to stay at Sweden’s top table.
Likewise, there are 16 teams in the Superettan with an identical format to the top league, meaning each team has a 30-game league season. The top 2 at the end of the season ere automatically promoted to the Allsvenskan, whilst the 3rd placed team enters the aforementioned playoff for a place in the top division.
The bottom two are automatically relegated to the regionalised Division 1 whilst the 3rd from bottom and 4th from bottom enter a relegation playoff. Both teams will be given a one-off tie against a second placed team from Division 1 with the winner earning their status in the second tier for the following season.
European Qualification
Sweden are ranked just 22nd in the UEFA coefficient rankings, which means they just have one qualifying spot available for the Champions League and the team who qualifies have to go through the preliminary rounds before the group stage. This spot goes to the winners of the Allsvenskan
There are also 3 places in the qualifying rounds of the inaugural Europa Conference League available to Swedish teams. They are available to the 2nd and 3rd placed teams in the Allsvenskan as well as to the winners of the Svenska Cupen. If the Svenska Cupen winners have already qualified for Europe through their league position than this final European place goes to the 4th placed team in the Allsvenskan.
Svenska Cupen
Each region is allocated a certain number of places in the Cup that are to be earned by lower league clubs through various different means. A total of 64 teams from Division 1 or lower join the 32 teams from the Allsvenskan and Superettan to create a tournament of 96 teams.
Malmö FF have won this competition more than anyone other team in history with 14 whilst AIK and IFK Göteborg have won it 8 times each.
Allsvenskan
Like with the cup, Malmö FF are out on their own as the most successful club in the Swedish league with 23 titles. Joint second in terms of league titles are IFK Göteborg and IFK Norrköping with 13 each.