Do you need a licence to become a football scout?

No. There is no scouting licence from the Swedish FA, UEFA or FIFA. Private courses give certificates, not qualifications. What counts with the clubs is reports and references.

How much does a football scout earn?

There are no Swedish salary statistics. Most scouts around the academies are unpaid, and advertised positions are usually part time with no pay stated. Foreign pay ranges apply to other markets.

How do you become a scout with no experience?

Watch matches, write reports and send two of them to an academy director or head of scouting. Video trainee positions are the most common first role that is actually advertised.

For scouts

There is no scouting course. Here is how you become a scout anyway.

By Gustav, founder of Breakout · 4 min read

The Swedish FA has no scouting course and no scouting licence. The way in runs through the academies’ unpaid networks, reports you write yourself and, at best, a trainee position on video. That is not the picture the course sellers paint, but it is the accurate one.

What a scout does in Sweden

Scouting in Swedish football is mainly an unpaid network around the academies, with a handful of salaried positions at the top. BK Häcken has a head scout and six unpaid scouts. Gais has five unpaid scouts who each watch two or three matches a month. That is what it looks like even at top-flight clubs.

The process is the same almost everywhere: a tip comes in, the player is watched live in at least two matches, somebody cuts together every touch of the ball, a report is written and discussed at a meeting. Allsvenskan clubs describe their work as a combination of data, video and live scouting, and in practice they all use Wyscout.

Training: what exists and what does not

The Swedish FA has no scouting course. What exists is the coaching ladder, and that is the Swedish route if you want an FA certificate in your hand. Talent identification only appears in UEFA Youth B, with the wording that the course is meant to prevent negative selection.

Coaching course D, then UEFA C for 6,000 kronor.
UEFA B for 22,000–24,000 kronor, requires C and six months of practice.
UEFA Youth B, requires B and twelve months. This is where talent identification lives.
UEFA Elite Scout Programme: 7,900 euros, requires two years of industry experience and is not run in Sweden. It gives a certificate, not a licence.
FIFA Talent Identification Foundation Course: free, online, an introductory course.
PFSA and IPSO: private British courses for £200–290. CPD-accredited, but not an FA licence. When the PFSA writes that the course is “required”, that refers to the English academy system EPPP, not Sweden.

What the job adverts look like

The adverts say more about the job than the courses do. Brommapojkarna’s academy advertised in 2024 for scouts working afternoons and evenings, with a placement that could lead to part-time work; a driving licence and a car were desirable and no pay was stated. IK Sirius advertised in 2025 for an unpaid scouting trainee for one year, “primarily video, secondarily data”. AFC Malmö advertised in September 2026 for a part-time scout, with Wyscout and Playmaker AI listed as desirable.

Competition is fierce even for the small roles. When Norrby IF advertised a part-time position in May 2026, more than 50 applications arrived within the first day.

Start without a job

Nobody hires a scout on enthusiasm. What you can show is reports, and you can write those without anyone asking you to.

The person who became a full-time scout at Sirius in 2024 went the route of video scout, academy coach and then full time. Expect your own route to look similar and to take several years.

Watch matches live, preferably the same team several times. One match is not enough for a judgement.
Write proper reports: position, strengths, weaknesses, what you saw and when. The guide on scouting reports shows the format.
Contact the academy director or head of scouting with two finished reports, not with a question about whether there are any jobs.
Aim for video first. That is where the trainee positions are, and it can be done from home.

The rules you must not break

Not being employed does not shield you from the rules. Contacting a player at another club with the aim of making them switch counts as an illegal approach. In Stockholm it is prohibited up to and including 31 October of the year the player turns 14, direct messages on social media are not allowed, and the fine can be up to 25,000 kronor. That is a rule in the Stockholm FA’s competition regulations (TB), not in the Swedish FA’s registration regulations (RB) – check what your own district says.

A player contract may only be signed from the year the player turns 15, and negotiations may begin once the player is 14 years and six months (RB 2026 chapter 3, section 7). A scout is not an agent: anyone representing players in contracts has needed a FIFA licence since 1 October 2023. And a private register of underage players, without a club’s legal basis behind it, is a data protection problem – the Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (IMY) treats children’s data as particularly worthy of protection.

Money and realism

There are no published salary statistics for football scouts in Sweden. The pay ranges circulating online come from British course sellers and describe a different market. Most roles are unpaid, and the ones that are paid are often part time. Expect scouting in the first few years to be something you do alongside another job.

Where to hear more

If you want to hear how the clubs describe the work themselves, there is the episode “We are everywhere” in AIK’s series How does AIK scout? from February 2026, the Swedish FA’s podcast on the six player qualities, and the podcast Fotbollslivet. As far as we know, there is no Swedish association for scouts.

In Breakout every scout is verified manually against a club ID or proof of employment before the account is activated. Contact with a player always goes through the player’s own approval, and the scout never receives the player’s contact details.

Last checked against RB 2026; RB 2027 takes effect at the end of November 2026.

Common follow-up questions

Do you need a licence to become a football scout?: No. There is no scouting licence from the Swedish FA, UEFA or FIFA. Private courses give certificates, not qualifications. What counts with the clubs is reports and references.
How much does a football scout earn?: There are no Swedish salary statistics. Most scouts around the academies are unpaid, and advertised positions are usually part time with no pay stated. Foreign pay ranges apply to other markets.
How do you become a scout with no experience?: Watch matches, write reports and send two of them to an academy director or head of scouting. Video trainee positions are the most common first role that is actually advertised.