Karl-Erik Nilsson (born 6 May 1957) is the president of the

Swedish Football Association The Swedish Football Association ( sv, Svenska Fotbollförbundet, SvFF) is the governing and body of football in Sweden. It organises the football leagues – Allsvenskan for men and Damallsvenskan for women – and the men's and women's nati ...

, a post he has held since 23 March 2012. Nilsson is also a retired

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

Life

Early career

Nilsson was born on 6 May 1957 in

Emmaboda Emmaboda () is a locality and the seat of Emmaboda Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden. It had 4,824 inhabitants in 2010. History Until 1875, Emmaboda was called Gantesbo. Back then there were only two houses in Gantesbo, which both remain to thi ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. He studied to become an

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

teacher, a profession he practised during the 1970s. Nilsson also worked in the

correctional system In criminal justice, particularly in North America, correction, corrections, and correctional, are umbrella terms describing a variety of functions typically carried out by government agencies, and involving the punishment, treatment, and su ...

of Sweden. As a politician for the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

, Nilsson was the chairman of the municipal board of

Emmaboda Municipality Emmaboda Municipality (''Emmaboda kommun'') is a municipality in Kalmar County, in south-eastern Sweden. Its seat is located in the town Emmaboda. The present municipality was formed in 1971, when the market town (''köping'') of Emmaboda (itself ...

between 1994 and 2006.

Referee

In the 1980s Nilsson started his career as a professional

. Nilsson supervised his first

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; en, the All-Swedish, also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan, en, the Football All-Swedish) is a Swedish professional league for men's association football clubs. It was founded in 1924 and is the top tier of the Swedish football lea ...

match in 1992 and became a

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

certified referee in 1994. He is best known for supervising matches during the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

(1999–2002). He was also a regular choice for leading international matches in the 1990s, for instance at the

1997 FIFA World Youth Championship The 1997 FIFA World Youth Championship, known as the 1997 FIFA/Coca-Cola World Youth Championship for sponsorship purposes, was the 11th staging of the FIFA World Youth Championship. It was held from 16 June to 5 July 1997 in Malaysia. It was th ...

. Nilsson's other official competitions included qualifiers for

Euro 1996 The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 ...

Euro 2000 The 2000 UEFA European Football Championship, also known as Euro 2000, was the 11th UEFA European Championship, a football tournament held every four years and organised by UEFA, the sport's governing body in Europe. The finals tournament was ...

, and the

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

and

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

World Cups. He also worked as a fourth official during

UEFA Euro 1996 The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 ...

The Swedish Football Association

After his career as a referee Nilsson remained in football and served as the chairman of

Bohusläns Fotbollförbund The Bohusläns Fotbollförbund ''(Bohuslän Football Association)'' is one of the 24 district organisations of the Swedish Football Association. It administers lower tier football in the historical province of Bohuslän. Background Bohuslän ...

until 2012. Nilsson was also active as a member of the boards of directors at the

before he was elected president of the association on 23 March 2012 after

Lars-Åke Lagrell Lars-Åke Lagrell (20 January 1940 near Växjö – 21 September 2020) was a Swedish sports personality who was the president of the Swedish Football Association between 1991 and 2012. In 2002 Prime Minister of Sweden Göran Persson appointed him ...

resigned.UEFA
"Nilsson takes Swedish Football Association helm"
27 March 2012. Retrieved on 9 May 2013.

References

External links

Profile on welfussball.de
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nilsson, Karl-Erik 1957 births Living people Swedish football referees Chairmen of the Swedish Football Association