Scandinavian model

**Stuttgart88** · 30/03/2009, 10:20 AM

Mods, feel free to put this in World Football but the context is to compare with our own model and to look for ideas. I have a 3rd level dissertation to prepare later this year and may actually select this topic. If anyone has good info feel free to PM me and we can discuss further.

I've long been jealous of Sweden & Denmark in particular (not only for footballing reasons!) - they constantly do well in tournament qualification and to a certain extent are demographically and socially similar to the Irish. Every international weekend I look up the results and see Sweden / Denmark / Finland win away in former USSR, job done, points on the board. OK, Denmark failed to qualify last time out but the gist is easy to get.

In Denmark in particular I understand that football has heavy competition from handball, and presumably the nordic sports. In Ireland football faces competition from GAA & rugby, not to mention English football, but the latter I think is also an issue for the Scandies.

If you were to book a flight to Denmark and look at how they do things root & branch over there what would you uncover?

What's the role of local government in football (I understand society in general is based on a very decentralised political stystem)?

How is the game governed?

How are their stadiums financed?

What is the structure of the game, from kids up to top league?

What financial condition is the game in?

What is youth development system?

And so on...

**carloz** · 30/03/2009, 10:30 AM

Watched Finland and they played Wales off the park at the weekend. And this is an old quite average Finn side containing Litmanenn, Hypia, Johhansson and Kuqi. When we played Wales in wales last year Jason Koumas ran the show. He didn't get a sniff at the weekend.
Sweden, who have arguably their poorest squad for a number of years, were able to travel to Portugal and get a draw without Ibrahimovic.
Denmark are winning their group.
Im not really in a postion to answer any of your questions but one thing i do notice about their teams is their physical stature. Most players on the Scandanavian teams are 6foot plus. This can be very important in international football. Irelands squad at present is painfully small, stature wise

**ifk101** · 30/03/2009, 11:06 AM

It basically comes down to taxation.

Sports betting is state-controlled in Scandinavia and a significant proportion of the monies generated are ploughed back into sports.

There is also a special "artist" tax for professional sports. If you look at Danish and Norwegian football clubs results in European competition and then compare them with the Swedish club results you'll notice that Swedish results are considerably weaker. Why? Denmark and Norway have a much more favourable "artist" tax than Sweden.

Local government is heavily involved in sports. With regards to facilities, you'd could compare the situation in Tallaght to that in operation in Sweden. There is plenty of private investment as well, but as a general rule, the local authorities are more heavily involved than say in Ireland.

**Drumcondra 69er** · 30/03/2009, 1:23 PM

Balls, I was hoping for some shots of a hot busty Nordic Goddess when I opened this thread....

**endabob1** · 30/03/2009, 1:35 PM

I don't think there is the competition for the live sport attenders that you have in Ireland with GAA & Rugby nor is there the traditional drain on their teenage talent to the UK, players from Scandnavia tend to find their feet in their domestic leagues before making the move, a situation the LOI should be looking to have for itself.

I was reading in WSC recently about the French league wanting to model itself on the premiership with clubs owning their own stadiums so they could use them for non-football related activities and make more money out of them. I found this strange because I've always admired the French concept of the local council owned stadium which is used as a multi-sports venue as opposed to the UK & Irish model where you have similar sized stadiums in small towns whereas 1 decent stadium would do the job to a higher standard, we have the added problem of GAA grounds so in a City like Galway which should have 1 20,000 seater for GAA, Rugby & Soccer you have 3 mediocre/poor grounds.

**irishultra** · 30/03/2009, 2:18 PM

i thought when i seen it on the main page it was going to be about social policys.

**Lionel Ritchie** · 30/03/2009, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by Drumcondra 69er

Balls, I was hoping for some shots of a hot busty Nordic Goddess when I opened this thread....

As was I.

Oh well ...better put it away I suppose.

**paul_oshea** · 30/03/2009, 11:34 PM

Was I the only one to click into this thinking, stutts had a picture of some hot swedish one?

Anyway I was surprised clicking in thinking stutts would post something like that, but then more surprised when it wasn't a picture of a scandanavian model!

**NeilMcD** · 30/03/2009, 11:38 PM

whats that i hear, yeah its the sound of the penny dropping.

**NeilMcD** · 30/03/2009, 11:38 PM

I hear JFK has been shot too.

**paul_oshea** · 30/03/2009, 11:41 PM

dont be so smart, are you not italy bound? if so do you have any spare accomodation?!

**tricky_colour** · 31/03/2009, 1:35 AM

I think I have found the wing backs

**theworm2345** · 31/03/2009, 7:09 AM

Originally Posted by tricky_colour

I think I have found the wing backs

Now this thread is truly living up to its name

**mark12345** · 31/03/2009, 11:33 AM

You ask how the Scandiavians do it. I can give you a specific and yet very broad answer - coaching. Their coaching is vastly superior to ours (in the League of Ireland).

How do I know this?

Well I haven't been over there to check it out on the training grounds of Sweden, Denmark and Norway's Rosenborg, but I do see their club teams on TV and see them do remarkably well in European competition and I see that their clubs are well coached.

Think of it this way - if you had your life savings to bet on England getting a win in a qualifier in Stockholm or Copenhagen, would you? Or would you bet on the home team? If it was my life savings I might bet on the draw. The point I'm making is that the standards of the England international team and that of the Scandinavian countries is very close indeed.

How can that be when the Premier League has all the money in the world? Basically it's because coaching proper football died a long time ago in England as they substituted technical ability for the hundred miles an hour game. And we in Ireland follow suit like sheep. It's bad enough that our talented yougsters go over and abandon any natural ability they might have had, but the people at home watch English football all day long and emulate the up in the air game they play there (obviously the top four or five clubs in the Prem League are exempt from the aforementioned reasoning, but that's only because of the massive amounts of foreign players they have in their ranks).

In any event I firmly believe that the coaching system in Ireland needs to be revamped. We have a foreign manager in charge of the national team, now is the time to bring in some top class foreign youth coaches.

**irishultra** · 31/03/2009, 11:53 AM

the thing i love is that when people say that other teams 'have superior technical ability' brady mentioned this around euro 2008, something about the eastern europeans always having better 'technical ability' well if that was 20-30 years ago, wtf has gone on in that time to not improve our technical ability? its not as if technical ability in football is some evolutionary developed trait that is exempt from irish people. we need a radical overhaul of soccer culture in this country. league of ireland clubs should try and create links with other european teams beside just english clubs.

hopefully the dutch guy we appointed(actually what has he done so far?) will improve our young players.

**Dodge** · 31/03/2009, 11:55 AM

Coaching definitely needs to improve, but before that happens facilities and infrastructure need to improve. I've been to Odense and Elfsborg within the last couple of years and their facilities were astonishing compared to Ireland. On the playng side Odense caught us badly in Denmark but we drew in Ireland and we were worthy victors over the Swedes (containing 3 internationals). Coaching didn't embarress us, facilities did

In Elfsborg case the local town council are heavily involved. In Odense's case they have a huge sponsorship deal with Carlsberg. Both had 15-17,000 arenas.

Apart from private investment, and obviously higher attendance figures, the big difference in income is TV money. In Ireland, the mot a club will get is €50k a season, in Denmark they get 10 times that

I did a bit of research on this a few years ago. I'll see if I can find it for you

**irishultra** · 31/03/2009, 12:03 PM

oh and look at the swedish squad, who might you see there, andreas svensson a player for elsfborg that pat's beat, but no we can't have any league of ireland players in brilliant 'english league is so amazing' ireland squad. not a chance. we're told that if he is 'good enough' he will have to prove himself being kicked to bits and shoved out on the wing before he can be called up for team ireland.

**bennocelt** · 31/03/2009, 7:11 PM

Originally Posted by mark12345

You ask how the Scandiavians do it. I can give you a specific and yet very broad answer - coaching. Their coaching is vastly superior to ours (in the League of Ireland).

How do I know this?

Well I haven't been over there to check it out on the training grounds of Sweden, Denmark and Norway's Rosenborg, but I do see their club teams on TV and see them do remarkably well in European competition and I see that their clubs are well coached.

Think of it this way - if you had your life savings to bet on England getting a win in a qualifier in Stockholm or Copenhagen, would you? Or would you bet on the home team? If it was my life savings I might bet on the draw. The point I'm making is that the standards of the England international team and that of the Scandinavian countries is very close indeed

.

I understand where you are coming from, BUT what about Norway and their style of play, and werent Sweden in the last two major comps playing a terrible brand of long ball - pumping it up to Ibrahomvic????

**Ouitone** · 31/03/2009, 7:58 PM

There's a small article on them here http://leagueofireland.wordpress.com...-the-heart-is/

Obviously, there's a context in that's it an LOI blog but it does raise some points.