Mats Gustafsson (born 12 December 1975) is a Finnish former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who played as a

right-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for Finnish clubs

IFK Mariehamn IFK Mariehamn is an Ålandic football club based in Mariehamn, the capital of the Åland Islands. It plays in the Finnish Premier Division (''Veikkausliiga''). The club is managed by Daniel Norrmén, and it plays its home matches at Wiklöf ...

and

FC Inter Turku Football Club International Turku, commonly referred to as Inter Turku and colloquially known as Inter, is a professional football club based in Turku, Finland, that competes in the Veikkausliiga, the top flight of Finnish Football. Founded in 1 ...

Career

Gustafsson is a

Swedish-speaking Finn The Swedish-speaking population of Finland (whose members are called by many names; fi, suomenruotsalainen) can be used as an attribute., group=Note—see below; sv, finlandssvenskar; fi, suomenruotsalaiset) is a linguistic minority in Finl ...

from

Åland Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an autonomous and demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1,580 km2, and a populat ...

. He moved to

from Finnish fourth-tier side Sund IF in 1997. He missed the beginning of 2002 season the due to an ankle injury. Having previously played as a striker, he was converted into a

in the 2002 season. He played 178 league matches scoring 23 goals for Inter Turku. In October 2005 it was announced he would join

from Inter Turku for the 2006 season. He signed a three-year contract. He made 41 league appearances for IFK Mariehamn. Gustafsson announced his retirement from playing in November 2007 at the age of 31, with two years left on his contract with IFK Mariehamn.

Personal life

Originally a

construction worker A construction worker is a worker employed in the physical construction of the built environment and its infrastructure. Definition By some definitions, workers may be engaged in manual labour as unskilled or semi-skilled workers; they may be sk ...

, Gustafsson graduated from

Åbo Akademi University Åbo Akademi University ( sv, Åbo Akademi , ) is the only exclusively Swedish language multi-faculty university in Finland (or anywhere outside Sweden). It is located mainly in Turku (Åbo is the Swedish name of the city) but has also activiti ...

with a degree in

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

in 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gustafsson, Mats 1975 births Living people Finnish footballers Association football fullbacks FC Inter Turku players IFK Mariehamn players Åbo Akademi University alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Swedish-speaking Finns Sportspeople from Southwest Finland