The Most Successful Football Clubs In Sweden

Sweden’s highest division, the Allsvenskan, celebrates its centenary this year and though it has expanded down the decades, and though there have been alterations, fundamentally little has changed.

Each April, a bunch of teams compete on a weekly basis. Each November either Malmo or IFK Göteborg lift the trophy.

Actually, that is not strictly true. In the early days, IFK Norrköping were a force to be reckoned with while Helsingborg – now regrettably in the second tier – had their moments too. All told, there have been 16 different winners of the Swedish top-flight and not many leagues around the world can boast that breadth of variety.

Still, it’s no surprise to see Malmo and Göteborg inhabit our top two places, behemoths both. Who else makes the grade as the most successful Swedish clubs of all time? Read on and find out.

Djurgårdens IF

Champions three times in seven years in the early 2000s, Djurgårdens were also very competitive in the 1960s with four top-two finishes, including two titles.

The club experienced more Allsvenskan glory in 2019 with their first title in 14 years and this after lifting the Svenska Cupen in 2017-18.

Forged in working class roots, this Stockholm-based club impressively reached the last 16 of the Europa Conference League in 2022/23 but elsewhere their European achievements pale to that of their immediate peers. They do however boast a hard-fought draw with Juventus in Turin at the height of their 2000s ‘golden era’.

The Iron Stoves just missed out on European qualification in 2024 but they’re worth considering in the betting now that former Finland boss Jani Honkavaara is at the helm.

IFK Norrköping

From a historical perspective Norrköping can stand tall having dominated the Swedish domestic scene across the Forties, Fifties and early Sixties.

Six Svenska Cupens is a hefty haul too.

Additionally, it was in the east of the country – in a city nicknamed ‘Sweden’s Manchester’ for the look of its architecture – where the striker Gunnar Nordahl emerged, firing 93 goals from 95 appearances before securing legendary status in Milan.

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen numerous times across this series, a club can – for varying reasons – have its time, and this appears to be the fate of the ‘Comrades’, dropping off the radar for years at a stretch and enduring sustained fallow periods.

To their immense credit they have brought themselves back into the reckoning twice-over, winning titles in 1989 and 2015.

Those one-off glories aside, this is a club whose greatest feats lie in the distant past.

AIK

Eight-time Svenska Cupen winners and third in the all-time Allsvenskan table, AIK have been a consistent force in Swedish football.

Like any club, there have been peaks and troughs, but commendably they have maintained a strong presence in the modern era, winning league titles in 2009 and 2018. There have also been six runners-up placings since 2005.

A run to the 1996-97 Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final and a two-legged tie with Barcelona is the highlight of AIK’s continental adventures though they should also take pride in their singular Champions League experience.

Placed in a formidable group the inhabitants of the Strawberry Arena at least ensured they weren’t whipping boys.

In recent seasons the Gnagnet have been consistent, if not spectacular, but clearly they are one of the biggest and most successful outfits in not only Sweden but across the whole of Scandinavia.

IFK Göteborg

Göteborg have only won one league title since 1996, but they were runners-up twice in the 2010s and dominated Swedish football throughout the 1990s, including a streak of four consecutive titles.

Champions League semi-finalists in 1993 and quarter-finalists a year later, Göteborg also won two UEFA Cups in the 1980s. Their pedigree in European competition is unmatched in Sweden.

Moreover, the ‘Angels’ can lay claim to nurturing plenty of globally renowned talent from Arne Nyberg and Gunnar Gren back in the day – the latter honoured with a stature erected outside the club’s imposing Gamla Ullevi stadium – to Thomas Ravelli who hung up his gloves in possession of 143 international caps.

For a long period, Göteborg were indisputably the most well-known and biggest club in the country, but they have fallen well off the pace set by Malmö since the turn of the century.

Malmö FF

Malmö have won just shy of a quarter of all titles ever competed for in Sweden and have a similarly fearsome record in the domestic cups, winning the Svenska Cupen on 16 occasions.

As the Allsvenskan prepares for its 101st season the ‘Blue Ones’ are short-priced in the football odds to repeat their title triumph of last year, and frankly it’s easy to see why.

If their successes on the home front have been consistent however, when it comes to continental glories we must turn to the past, to 1979 when Malmo navigated a tricky path to a European Cup final, eventually undone by Nottingham Forest.

Regardless, that remains a high-water mark for a well-supported club that shows little sign of slipping from their perch anytime soon.