Lennart Johanssons Pokal is a

trophy A trophy is a tangible, durable reminder of a specific achievement, and serves as a recognition or evidence of merit. Trophies are often awarded for sporting events, from youth sports to professional level athletics. In many sports medals (or, in ...

awarded annually by 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 nat ...

to the winning team of the Swedish top division,

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 ...

. The winner of Allsvenskan is also crowned Swedish Champions. The trophy was introduced in 2001 following media giving publicity in early November 2000 that

Clarence von Rosen Count Carl Clarence von Rosen (12 May 1867, Stockholm – 12 August 1955) was a Swedish athlete, military officer, and Crown Equerry to the King of Sweden. He became a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1900, and was credited for ...

, the man after which the previous trophy was named, had

nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

sympathies during the 1930s. The first club to lift the trophy was Hammarby IF in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

and most recently

Malmö FF Malmö Fotbollförening, commonly known as Malmö FF, Malmö, or MFF, is a professional football club and the most successful football club in Sweden in terms of trophies won. Formed in 1910 and affiliated with the Scania Football Association, ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

. Malmö FF is the club to have lifted the trophy the most times, having lifted it eight times.

The trophy

The trophy is made of

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

and has a

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 ...

mounted on a socle with two large handles on each side of the socle. The trophy was designed by Anja Nibbler Kothe and was inspired by a trophy that the

Sweden national football team The Sweden national football team ( sv, svenska fotbollslandslaget) represents Sweden in men's international football and it is controlled by the Swedish Football Association, the governing body of football in Sweden. Sweden's home ground is F ...

had been awarded for winning the gold medal at the

1948 Summer Olympics The 1948 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XIV Olympiad and also known as London 1948) were an international multi-sport event held from 29 July to 14 August 1948 in London, England, United Kingdom. Following a twelve-year hiatus ca ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. The trophy is named after former

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

president

Lennart Johansson Nils Lennart Johansson (5 November 1929 – 4 June 2019) was a Swedish sports official who served as the fifth and, to date, longest-serving president of UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations. He served in the position from his elec ...

, who was in office between 1990 and 2007. The thought behind the trophy was to connect the biggest trophy a Swedish club could win with the biggest Swedish football leader.

Secret inscription controversy

In 2010 ''

Dagens Nyheter ''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record. History and profile ''Da ...

'' wrote an article where goldsmith Peter Gustafsson told the newspaper that his old colleague Ingemar Eklund who made the trophy had engraved "Bajen Forever" on the inside of the trophy. "Bajen" is the nickname for the first holders of the trophy Hammarby IF. The Swedish football association went as far as to actually open the top of the trophy to make sure nothing subjective was engraved on the inside of the trophy. Instead of "Bajen Forever" the words "Djurgården är bäst!!" (literally "

Djurgården Djurgården ( or ) or, more officially, ''Kungliga Djurgården'' (), is an island in central Stockholm, Sweden. Djurgården is home to historical buildings and monuments, museums, galleries, the amusement park Gröna Lund, the open-air museum ...

are the best") were found on the inside of the trophy. The chairman of the football association later told the media that the engravings would be removed when the

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

champions

received their engravings on the outside of the trophy.

Trophy winners

Nine teams have lifted the trophy since 2001. Hammarby IF were the first holders of the trophy and

are the current holders. Malmö FF have held the trophy a record eight times.

References

{{Football in Sweden Association football trophies and awards European football trophies and awards Swedish sports trophies and awards Football in Sweden 2001 establishments in Sweden Awards established in 2001 Allsvenskan