Club licensing: how the Dutch and Swedish football associations coupled up
Wednesday, August 6, 2025
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Paul van Wageningen of the Royal Netherlands Football Association and Kjell Sahlström of the Swedish Football Association discuss how a new UEFA exchange programme is strengthening European football’s club licensing network.
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Club licensing is a critical component of every European association's club development strategy. By setting best practice standards, it guides clubs' operations across countless areas of football governance - sporting, legal and financial, infrastructure, personnel and administrative as well as social and environmental sustainability
To strengthen European football’s club licensing network, in 2024/25 UEFA launched an exchange programme that coupled ten associations, encouraging them to share successes and challenges and learn from each other. Collaboration involved a series of online and face-to-face meetings covering club licensing and related topics during the season, before all five 'pairs' gathered for a workshop at UEFA’s headquarters in July to take stock.
More about UEFA's club licensing programme
With the second edition kicking off this summer, to date, 22 associations have participated in the programme including the Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) and the Swedish Football Association (SvFF), who paired up last season. Paul van Wageningen, head of club licensing at the KNVB and Kjell Sahlström, Chief Finance Officer and Club Licensing Manager at the SvFF, reflect on the benefits of the programme.
How has the exchange programme worked in practice?
Kjell Sahlström (SvFF): "I travelled to Zeist in December while Paul and his colleagues came to Solna in June. These in-person meetings allowed for more in-depth discussions, the exchange of practical experiences, and reflection on day-to-day challenges."
Paul Van Wageningen (KNVB): "Regular online meetings helped prepare the ground for the face-to-face visits that also saw the involvement of colleagues from other departments. I expect our collaboration to continue. It’s the perfect complement to broader exchanges at UEFA regional workshops, which are more focused on regulations and general updates."
What are the strengths of your respective national club licensing systems?
Van Wageningen: "One of the strengths of our club licensing system is our requirement that changes in ownership affecting more than 25% of shares must be pre-approved by an independent decision-making authority, the First Instance Body. This is designed to safeguard the integrity of Dutch club competitions."
Sahlström: "Introduced in 2001, our domestic licensing system is an important tool to develop Swedish clubs. Today, we have a robust monitoring system in place that allows us to assess the financial health of all Swedish clubs. It provides a good basis for early intervention. Our requirements are very similar to UEFA, except our evaluation takes place at different times due to Sweden’s spring-autumn season. It means that today clubs are held in high esteem by partners, supporters and wider society, boosting football’s growth nationally."
"Club licensing is very important to establish good governance in our clubs and leagues, and an important tool to develop the clubs."
What changes will you make thanks to the lessons you have learnt from each other?
Van Wageningen: "We have learned that the main reason the SvFF introduced domestic club licensing was to improve the negative equity of its clubs. We’d like to know more about the way our Swedish colleagues leveraged their system to turn the situation around and create a more financially sustainable league. We were also impressed by Sweden’s success in attracting so many women and young girls to take up the game – despite the challenges of a harsh winter climate and enormous distances."
Sahlström: "The KNVB has established a committee with representatives from the league and clubs that advises on club licensing regulations, both on request and pro-actively. This is a different way to work, and something the SvFF might consider trying in the future. They also have more resources dedicated to club licensing. We would also like to increase our capacity to deal with key issues."
"Club licensing is crucial. It has proven to be an effective system that sets minimum standards for our clubs, promoting good governance and sustainability in football."
What future challenges did you discuss?
Van Wageningen: "Our main challenge is dealing with the increasing complexity of club ownership structures, particularly when multiple entities and foreign – sometimes offshore – jurisdictions are involved. This can make it difficult to determine who are the ultimate controlling parties and beneficiaries, especially as changes occur with ever more frequency. We want to ensure full transparency to safeguard the integrity of Dutch club competitions, but this has led to a significant increase both in workload and in responsibilities for clubs and our association, especially the First Instance Body."
Sahlström: "Our main weakness is not implementing other UEFA requirements into our domestic system for top division men’s and women’s clubs. Whatever changes we make, it’s important to work in full cooperation with the clubs so they can see the added value. After all, they are all our members."