Earlier this evening, Fotbollskanalen’s Olof Lundh published a column about a certain post on X, published by division 1 club Torns IF on January 9 this year.
The post was a picture of the chairman of the Swedish Football Association, Fredrik Reinfeldt, smiling broadly, made up like a clown and with a red hat on his head, with the following text:
“What’s going on @svenskfotboll? It’s bad enough that the national captaincy issue is unresolved, but a bigger problem is that no order of play has yet been presented for Etta (usually comes before Christmas). Does the new manager lack the leadership qualities required to get things done ?”
Half an hour after the post was published, Ettanfotboll’s chairman Johan Englund called Torn’s chairman Guillermo Sagastume and said it would be removed immediately. A couple of hours later, the post was gone.
Englund is said to have then demanded a written apology to him, that the board should take measures to ensure hundred percent control over the association’s communication and “immediately dismiss the individuals who wrote the post from all assignments in Torns IF and expressly prohibit them from speaking in the association’s name in any context” – all to avoid sanctions and reduced payments from the football association and Svenska Spel.
The soccer channel searched for Johan Englund before the column was published, but he only called later towards the evening. In an interview, he now gives his view on the matter.
– I was alerted to the fact that a post was published on X on January 9 and then I did as I usually do. In my role, I often dialogue with the presidents of our member associations. I looked for Guillermo and we talked on the phone. I did not ask for a personal apology or for the association to delete the post. I put it like it is reasonable for the association to distance itself from it, then the association itself made the decision to take it down. As I understood Guillermo, he himself thought the post was over the line and I thought it was important that this did not escalate further. I heard from various individuals within Swedish football that they thought it was, to say the least, inappropriate, and I and others in our organization thought so too, says Englund and continues:
– I have expressed on several different occasions that there is freedom of association in Sweden and that it is the association that decides who are members and what their roles are. As an interest organization, we cannot influence or decide that. Based on the conversations I had with Guillermo, I thought the measures proposed by the association were reasonable. Immediately after our first conversation, he had a chat with the people responsible for the account at X and then told me he didn’t think it was a good idea to separate the individuals from their assignments, but instead wanted to have internal conversations with them about how to manage the club’s official account on X and then be clear that you should not mock others.
This was a line of reasoning that Englund regarded as wise.
– Guillermo and I thus agreed that the matter was acted out. I have not threatened the association with withdrawing money. A little later, Guillermo said that he thought the people managing the account should come to the next board meeting so they can have discussions. He and I have had a good dialogue and, as I understand it, there is a consensus that the beauty of Swedish football is that we want each other’s best. This means that you don’t mock each other in social media. This characterizes our work as an interest organization and our collaboration with both SvFF and Swedish Elite Football. If you mock each other on social media, it can make that kind of cooperation more difficult, says Englund and continues:
– With this, I want to correct these direct inaccuracies and if anyone in Torns IF perceived this as a threat or censorship or otherwise took it badly, I apologize for that. Torns IF is a fantastic association building with its non-profit forces and fine sporting achievements, and for me it is more important than ever that we show care and encourage each other rather than the opposite.
But if we pick up here – you have, according to our publication, demanded that the post be deleted, that the club apologize and that those responsible for the post should have no role at all in the club. You mean this is not true?
– It’s been a month now, so I don’t remember exactly how the words fell, but if I remember correctly, I didn’t demand deletion of the post. I expressed myself as if it is reasonable for the association to strongly distance itself from the post, which is also evident from the text message I sent him after our conversation. I have no recollection of demanding that they take down the post. I remember it as being on their own initiative.
Not that anyone should be fired?
– I needed a message about how they should act and the reasonable thing was a strong rejection. Reasonably, one should consider separating the individuals who gave rise to the communication from their assignments.
Even though these are people who work voluntarily on other fronts in the association?
– It is not something we can demand. It is the association that decides who or who are members and what roles they have in the association.
But have you thought they should?
– It is difficult for you who were not in the talks with Guillermo, but I said this to him: If I had been in this situation – which I was when I myself built the association – I would have thought about it. One way for you, I said, to handle this and avoid the situation from escalating is for you to confirm that you separate the individuals from their missions.
What do you really see as a problem with the post?
– That you portray an individual, regardless of who it is, who is involved in Swedish association life as a clown. Not only Guillermo agreed, but a number of other people. Then, of course, you can have different ideas about where the line is.
The chronicle states that Torns IF, according to you and via the post, violated Ettanfotboll’s statutes and the agreement between the association and the interest organization. However, neither people in the association nor lawyers have been able to find what it is that the association has violated. What do you say about that?
– That I never claimed that.
And there has been no talk of withdrawing money?
– No. I have answered a question where Guillermo asked me to comment on which statutes and rules one needs to adhere to. The answer is simple. According to the statutes, if you act contrary to the purpose and objectives of the interest organization, you may receive a warning and then sanctions. But there are also clear rules of procedure which mean that an association that finds itself in a situation like this has the right to give its view on the matter in an orderly and legal process.
Has Torns IF broken any rules?
– No, and I have never claimed that either.
Englund speaks calmly and takes his time to give his opinion. When asked if he regrets something he did – or didn’t do – he answers like this:
– I don’t know how the discussions went internally in Torns IF. However, I feel that I had a good dialogue with their chairman and that is the only person I have dialogued with in this case. But it is clear that if the summary of the possible, powerful measures that I sent via SMS has circulated without having the full context, I understand that it creates the impression that we, as an interest organization, believe that we have the right to force a member association to decide who should perform what in the association, who may be members. In light of that, I should have formulated myself more carefully and completely in the text message exchange, he says and continues:
– If the image was created based on text messages seen and perhaps retold parts of conversations, it doesn’t take an Einstein to understand if some made that interpretation and that is obviously unfortunate. This is also why I want to apologize if anyone perceived this as a threat or censorship. The result of my conversations with Guillermo was that he suggested that they invite those responsible for the X account to a board meeting. I thought it was a good idea. You can summarize it as Guillermo and I brainstormed different solutions and I completely bought his proposal on how the association should handle the whole thing.
2024-02-11 23:43:00
#Ettan #chairman #direct #errors #Fotbollskanalen
