Hanna Marklund Retires

Swedish defender Hanna Marklund has retired from international football. She won 117 caps and was rated as one of the best defender's in the world.

A big blow for Sweden , gives her club side more of her now.

She's retired from her club too (Sunnanå SK) I believe (according to Wikipedia)

Has she , Smoggie never told me that , tut , tut

just a random question how old is she? retiring already surely shes not that old?

Smoggie has given me more info on her :

She has retired from club and country.

She is 30 years old.

Her international debut was in 1997 v Iceland.

In 2005 she won the Diamond Ball ( Sweden's highest honour )

She's been voted Sweden's best defender the past 3 years.

sad news

why that early? she was till a good player

I've no idea , maybe she has other things she wants to do.

Women's footballers are underpayed aren't they, only part-time rates? Maybe she wasn't able to live her regular lifestyle so has quit football to earn some more money?

gues you close with the truth
sad sad sad

Its always sad when players retire

I'm not looking forward to when players like Gerrard, Kewell and other Socceroos or Liverpool players hang up their boots...

I thought in Sweden they got payed for playing for their clubs.

It might not be enough though, unless they are making a few hundred pounds a week...

I don't know about that. I think on the Dandal blog thingy I read some of the players wages from 2005, he estimated from their public Swedish tax return thingies. I think it was the top 20 or 30 best paid players in the league, which you would assume she would be amongst, and all of them made a living wage or slightly above. I'm too lazy to figure this out in pounds but as I remember it, it was something like $25,000-40,000 USD and some even higher. Lotta Schelin was making something like $32,000, and that was before she even really peaked, isn't it? And I know that several of their prices have gone up since, and I do not believe that what they get paid by the Swedish Nats and or extra endorshment deals were factored in. That may not be phenomnal, but starting wages at new jobs don't tend to be either. I don't know my memory could be way wrong, but I know that I left with the impression that for at least the top players in the league the living standard was satisfactory.

She may just be really tired of traveling or her body may getting a bit too sore. A good percentage of female athletes don't go beyond their early thirties in sports for various body, family, drive related reasons, so I don't think its a money issue. I may be completely wrong. I think she has interviews about it out there in Swedish that would probably answer our questions.

Hanna Marklund, who retired from the Swedish National Team at the beginning of the month, has announced that she is pregnant. (Swedish)

That explains it then

Do you mean the father is Swedish?

What does this Hanna Marklund look like anyway? I have never seen her

No I copied it from an English language news source, but they had a link to an article in Swedish, and I didn't cut out that part. The father is Norwegian. (j/k)

Found her don't worry I know who we're talking about now, I had her mixed up with someone else at first cause I read an article about her and it had a picture of a girl with brown hair