Tomas Eriksson was at the men's Swedish football match AIK–Kalmar in Stockholm last Sunday with his son when his phone started heating up in the stands at the Strawberry Arena.
At that time, SVT had published information that national team captain Marcus Sjöberg had resigned ahead of the upcoming Team World Championships in London. This was said to be due to conflicts within the squad.
“Honorable”
"To be honest, I watched five or six minutes (of the match)," says Tomas Eriksson, who was elected as federation chairman a week earlier.
All information has been denied by the table tennis side, but this is not the first time there has been a storm surrounding the men's national team since the double Olympic silver medals in Paris in the summer of 2024.
For example, world number two Truls Möregårdh and the association were in a conflict last winter over the star's coaching solution. None of this deterred Tomas Eriksson when he accepted the nomination committee's request to run for president.
I thought it was an honorable assignment and I am generally very curious, he says.
He was and is open about not knowing much about table tennis - Eriksson comes from floorball. Among other things, he was chairman of the international federation for 28 years, but has also been on the board of the Swedish Sports Federation for many years.
The lack of ping-pong knowledge meant that Eslöv – Möregårdh's club – and Spårvägen, as well as the Västmanland district association, wanted Lasse Ericsson as chairman instead, as reported by Dagens Nyheter . A couple of days before the chairman election, the candidacy was withdrawn.
Suffering from growing pains
I think I would have been elected by a very large margin anyway, but afterwards I talked to those who I knew wanted the other Ericsson, says Tomas Eriksson.
All sports have different camps. But I think I can help with that. Then of course I can't play table tennis.
One reason for all the conflict areas is that all the successes in recent years have caused table tennis to suffer from growing pains, Eriksson believes.
He will be listening to the movement in the near future.
"I can't meet 450 associations, of course, but I will try to meet the districts and the leading associations. I feel that I need to get to know the people and ask what they see and what the needs are for Swedish table tennis," says Tomas Eriksson.
Age: 62.
Lives: Stockholm – born in Marks municipality, Västergötland.
Education: Master of Science (BSc).
Previous sports assignments: Chairman of the Swedish Floorball Association 1992–1999 and Secretary General 1999–2010, Chairman of the International Floorball Federation 1996–2024, Member of the Board of the Swedish Sports Federation 2015–2023.
Source: Swedish Table Tennis Association website
According to information provided to SVT, the men's national team's captain, Marcus Sjöberg, had resigned ahead of the Table Tennis Team World Championships in London. The reason given was that Sjöberg was tired of the conflicts between world number two Truls Möregårdh and the other players on the team.
SVT wrote that Möregårdh had made a number of demands on the association before the camp in Malmö, such as being allowed to live in his own apartment and not eat with the rest of the squad.
The information has been denied.
The Swedish Table Tennis Association issued a statement saying that Sjöberg never resigned and that "in good dialogue between players and the national team management, a plan has been put in place that we believe will be good for everyone involved" ahead of the championship.
"I was speechless when I read it, because nothing was right," Möregårdh later told SVT , emphasizing that it was natural to live in his apartment because Malmö is his hometown.
Marcus Sjöberg told Expressen that there was "no truth at all in this":
I have been clear that it has been a challenging period, but to drag it out this far and rely on false rumors is not true, he said.
