Once upon a time, there was a football tournament that essentially looked to crown the best football team in Scandinavia.
The tournament was known as the Royal League and it would be held annually, however it had only lasted three years before the criticism for the competition became too much and caused it to cease to exist.
Naturally, on paper, it would have sounded like a very good idea such as joining Tangiers would be for casino players, but unfortunately, things went south pretty quickly as the logistics of hosting such an event almost became impossible for it to become a sustainable and viable competition to continue.
For instance, one of the problems that were faced was that whilst Swedish and Norwegian teams had finished their domestic seasons, Danish sides were only halfway through their league season, therefore those that had qualified had only adopted weakened teams as they found competing domestically to be far more important.
Other issues would have been the fact that the competition had not been open to the whole of Scandanavia, with teams from Finland and Iceland having been excluded, although there were plans to include Finnish sides at one stage.
The competition followed a format that saw the four best-placed teams from the three top leagues, meaning that 12 clubs would compete in that season’s Royal League.
Despite only managing to last three seasons before being abolished, Denmark would go on to have a team represent them and win the tournament each time, with FC Copenhagen being the most successful as they won it twice.
Brondy were the last winners of the competition, as they beat Copenhagen to stop them from winning all three editions of the tournament. Only Goteborg and Lillestrom were able to reach the finals as well but were unsuccessful in their efforts.
Each game was incredibly close in the final, but the 2004/05 edition is one that will stand out more than others because of the penalty shootout that ensued between FC Copenhagen and Goteborg.
The two sides were level 1-1 at the end of extra time but the Danes had managed to win after netting 11 of their penalties in the shoot-out and winning 11-10.
Unfortunately, a lack of financial backing and incentive sadly ended the short-lived tournament as no TV broadcaster had wanted the rights to the competition, whilst it would also seem that interest was at a very low point between those clubs that were eligible to compete in it.
