The pitches may be snow-bound for almost half the year and the stock of players far smaller than in England, but grass-roots football in Sweden, for both men and women, continues to prosper, thanks to strong funding and organisation, as Jim Drewett reports

World Cup finalists in 1958, third-placed at USA ’94… the game in Sweden has a rich tradition. Football, however, is not the national sport; ice hockey has that honour. Indeed, thanks to the ravages of the Scandinavian winter, football can only be played half the year. Even if the pitches weren't covered in snow and ice for five months of the year, there would be the 16-20 hours a day of mid-winter darkness to contend with.

How, then, have the Swedes manage to produce so many top-level players and qualify regularly for the major tournaments? Well, while the elements may be against football and the season shorter than ours - it lasts from just April to September - Sweden's well-funded and highly organised sporting club structure goes a long way towards redressing the balance.

Across the country, there are 3,000 local sporting clubs. And although these clubs organise many other sports, from cross-country skiing to kick-boxing, generally speaking it's ice hockey in the winter and football in the summer.

Through them Sweden boasts 20,000 football teams (for everyone from five to six-year-old youngsters to battle-weary veterans), excellent facilities and, crucially, access to quality coaching from a very early age.

All in all, the Swedish FA currently has 199,000 registered players over 15 years of age (of which 38,000 are women), and 240,000 registered players under 15 (of which an estimated 70-80,000 are girls). That's a total of 440,000 players – a significant number perhaps, but still less than an eighth of the number of registered players in England.

From top to bottom Swedish football is built on one solitary league system. At adult level there are two male professional national leagues, and below that 28 amateur regional leagues each featuring anything from two or three divisions to Stockholm's eight. On top of that there are hugely popular seven-a-side leagues, organised by a private company called Korpen, which boast 100,000 registered players.

The Swedish FA offers grants and funds for clubs at all levels for facilities, but few own their own ground and local authorities provide and maintain most of the pitches.

With the harsh winters, however, grass is at a premium (especially in urban areas) and only the best teams play on the real thing. The rest must make do with artificial pitches, if they're very lucky or, more likely, the dreaded gravel. In winter the game pretty much closes down, apart from indoor five-a-side. There are only 10 full-size indoor pitches in the whole country.

Nevertheless, football is currently enjoying something of a boom in Sweden. With the likes of Larsson and Ljungberg flying the flag abroad and World Cup fever gripping the nation, football is the only sport where numbers of participants are not declining. Despite the freezing winters, maybe ice hockey's grip is beginning to thaw.

Click on the links below for information on grassroots football in other World Cup countries.