The Last Proletarians of Football (2011)

The Last Proletarians of Football (Swedish: Fotbollens sista proletärer) is a 2011 Swedish documentary film about the football club IFK Göteborg and its success during the 1980s, but also about the development of Swedish society.

The documentary is written and directed by Martin Jönsson and Carl Pontus Hjorthén, with music by Ian Person, guitarist of former Swedish rock band The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Producer Kalle Gustafsson Jerneholm has also been a member of the band.

The title of the film alludes to how the players of IFK Göteborg during the period were part of the class of wage-earners, playing the game as amateurs in a world of professional footballers, just like the proletariat are the class of wage-earners in a capitalist society.

Synopsis

The film begins by showing similarities between the politics of the Swedish Social Democratic Party with prime minister Olof Palme, and the successful semi-amateur club IFK Göteborg where all players had regular jobs as cooks, plumbers and clerks besides being footballers. Just as the combination of market economy and welfare state (the Swedish model) challenged the free market economies of Europe, IFK Göteborg challenged the fully professional European top clubs.