
NATIONAL TEAM PLAYER:
sweden


Julia Spetsmark
Julia made her debut in Sweden´s first league at the age of 17 back in 2006, which means she´s currently on her 16th season at the absolute top level.
She has represented Manchester City, North Carolina Courage and Djurgården, just to mention a few.
She was also selected to the Swedish National Team, both at the youth and women´s level.


After winning the NWSL with NC Courage in 2019, she decided to go back to play in Europe. We got to "borrow" her from her agency Neverland Management to finalize a deal with S.L. Benfica.
We flew down to Lissabon and the legendary club Benfica in January 2020 to sign Julias contract. The club had begun an aggressive effort to invest in their newly started women´s team, with hopes to reach the same successes as their men´s team.


Julia played 6 games and scored 2 goals for Benfica, before corona broke out and put an end to the season. She was the first Swedish women´s player ever to sign, start, and score for the club.
Unfortunately the Portuguese federation put a temporary halt to the club´s ambitions when they imposed a league-wide salary limit (starting the following season). It meant the club was unable to renew her contract without substantially lowering it.
It was a cut that would have reduced her pay from super-professional to barely professional at all. A very frustrating situation for both the club and the player, as both parties already looked forward to continuing together.


The salary limit was later taken away, after huge protests and a law-suit by the players against the federation. However, at this time Julia had already signed for French top-league club FC Fleury 91 on a 2-year contract.
